The Talking Head Game
by Predominantly Normal
Summary: When Peridot falls into a secret relationship with her taken best friend, she's already well aware that it can only end in disaster. But if she gets the one thing that she's always wanted, then who cares about the minor casualties along the way? [Pearl/Lapis][Lapis/Peridot] Complete. human AU. Rated M as of chapter 7.
1. This is Peridot, Over

**I DO NOT OWN STEVEN UNIVERSE**

 **This fic is going to transition between three protagoinists- Peridot, Lapis, and Pearl. I'm going to actually try and fulfill my goal of finishing it, but I'm untrustworthy, so you can just see how far I get for yourselves.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS:**

 **Explicit swearing, Explicit mentions of sex, and Unhealthy relationship dynamics.**

* * *

This is Peridot, Over

As an avid reader, I'd be lying to you if I told you I hadn't read my fair share of sleazy romance novels. I'm talking about the ones you find in the drugstore bookshelves for desperate and dry middle aged ladies. You've probably seen them before- their covers almost exclusively depict a conventionally attractive woman and man almost kissing in some scenic area while the sun dips behind them.

Of course, I didn't fancy this genre all too much- I tended to lean towards the Science Fiction section if anything- but sometimes I needed a break from the smoke-filled air of a dystopian future to immerse myself in something a bit less exciting, like two teenagers falling in love and mouth-to-mouthing it in the moonlight. I even liked some of it.

However, it didn't take me long to notice some rather unsettling trends about these books. For example:

1.) The two protagonists were always of the opposite sex. The only exception to this blatant heteronormativity was a story where the main conflict centered around the trials and tribulations of _not_ liking the alternate sex. (And doesn't everybody love the gay angst narrative?)

2.) Forbidden love was the ultimate trope. Love described in one too many flowery paragraphs as written with the warmth of one thousand suns, but couldn't possibly exist because of some arbitrary and flimsy reason. Maybe Mary-Sue has a traumatic past and abusive parents that would never possibly allow her to love her sensitive boyfriend? Sure. That's not a rehash of every other damn book out there.

3.) And the worst of all my grievances- the war metaphors. I'd be perfectly content reading about this rehashed plotline about a boy and a girl until I came across the constant and unrelenting use of figurative language comparing the passionate young love to war. It was sickening, and I downright loathed the glorification of blood and battles and weapons being used symbolically as the female protagonist gets eaten out behind the 7/11. Because how romantic is it to describe your boyfriend's tongue as a foot soldier navigating the battlefield of your, _ahem,_ internal crevices?

I hated every book with these three clichés. As soon as I found a brief foreshadowing of the forbidden love conflict or read one war=love metaphor, I was out. I knew the landmarks of the grievances from the first chapter, and had the book returned to the library drop box by the second.

And that's why I hate myself for not seeing it coming earlier. That's why it's so damn ironic to me that my life has twisted into this horrid excuse of an overused plotline. In retrospect, I suppose it's easier to see the freight train coming to hit you when you're not on the railroad tracks. But Lapis Lazuli was not a freight train- she was a girl. And I didn't get hit by her, I got pummeled, thrown into the ocean, drowned, revived, thrown into the ocean _again,_ and shoved into an active water mine.

So let me start this off by saying that my love was comparable to a war. And it was comparable to a war because it was wrong, immoral, and on top of all else, it hurt like a motherfucker.

Every time she touched me, it was like a brutal explosion, shooting up dirt like a geyser and sending me reeling without my basic senses. Every shitty kiss was like a bullet ripping down the fair skin on my neck, and every spoken word was an interrogation with a wet rag and water hose. And the only honorable thing about it was how willingly and eagerly self-destructive we all were. Going into detail gives me post-traumatic stress, and sometimes I can still feel the rumble of artillery discharging in my bones.

I know that this war story will never land me as an American hero with a half-hour special on Opera. At most, I'll get some sympathy from someone who cares to listen. But I feel like either way, I need to get this off my chest.

So let's begin. The setting is my home base. I'm in the middle of a meeting with my top covert specialist and best friend, Lapis Lazuli.

It's dim, and the dense musk of incense blurs my mind. We're both sitting on my plush carpet, leaning against my bed. Lapis' head falls to my shoulder, and a laptop playing YouTube videos warms my thighs. It's all very comforting. Just like how I prefer it. I'm not a very exciting person- my ideal hangout is something with very minimal talking and even less doing.

I'm still rolling something Lapis murmured over in my mind. The world around me spins sluggishly, like it's been laid thick in honey. She pulls her head from my shoulder (a real shame) and looks me in the eyes. She knows I can't break eye contact once I form it- so I'm stuck paying attention to every word she says until those brilliant blue eyes flicker away to look at something more interesting.

"So…?"

"So what?" I say, knitting my eyebrows. My lazy grin irons into a thin grimace.

"I don't know- you usually have input on this kind of stuff!" Lapis sighs, throwing her hands in the air and raising her brows. "I mean, damn, you're horrible at advice, but I'd still appreciate the moral support."

"Thanks," I deadpan, clicking on another video and trying to avoid the question.

Lapis is having none of my aversion tactics. "Well?"

I slam my laptop shut and swing my head over to face her entirely. I'm scowling now, my pupils feeling like the coal-black slits of a feral predator.

"Do you really want to know what I think?"

"Well now I'm not so sure anymore. But go ahead," Lapis says, trying to laugh it off weakly.

I turn my gaze away from her and stare straight ahead at the alien stickers decorating my dresser. I chose a glittery one with googol eyes as my focus point and sigh. "I don't like the sound of it. To be frank, you have the emotional range of a garbage can and Pearl sort of looks like she could cry at the drop of a hat." I see Lapis' posture go rigid.

"So?" Lapis snaps suddenly, "Are you saying I only deserve to love people who are as stoic and cynical as I am? Are you saying I should only date someone like _you?"_

It's the way she says 'someone like you' that makes a chill run down my spine. Like a filthy slur she's forcing to get past her teeth.

I lock my jaw to keep it from trembling as I reply, "No. I just don't think it'll work out. That's all."

"Whatever." She crosses her arms.

" _You're_ the one who asked for my opinion," I remind her with a twinge of agitation making my tone waver.

She sighs. "That's fair."

We don't do anything for the next few minutes save for pretending to be interested in the wiggling habits of my pet snake. Alduin knows when there's tension in the air, and he tends to squirm as if it makes him uncomfortable. Right now, he's pressed up to the glass and bumping his nose on the grate keeping him in his cage. He's restless.

And so are we, because suddenly, I can't decide if it's my neck or my knees that itch more, and Lapis changes her sitting position every five seconds.

"Look," she says, breaking the silence, "I really like her, alright? I'm going to go on this date today, and if it turns out that we don't work or she's not interested, I'll let you say 'I told you so'. Okay?"

I cross my arms and turn away. I know that I'll melt into her stare if I catch it and give in. And this is a battle I refuse to surrender in without my dignity.

"I don't care. Do what you want."

She rolls her eyes and gets up to leave. Groaning internally, I stop her.

"But at least put on a bra first."

She cracks a smile and gestures to her nightshirt- a stupid Lilo and Stitch graphic tee that I absolutely despise. It's true that she isn't exactly in desperate need to protect her nonexistent chest. She's flatter than steamrolled concrete. "What's stoppin' me?"

"Societal convention? Plus, it's supposed to be a little chilly today and I don't think Pearl would be too keen on seeing your _perky tits_ through your shirt," I smirk. Lapis blushes a bright red and crosses her arms, releasing a defeated sigh.

"Shut up!"

"It's not my fault you don't bring spare underwear to your swim meets," I laugh lowly, settling my laptop besides me to rifle through my top drawers. I sift through my bras until I come across a neon green sports-bra with cartoon frog eyes slapped on where the boobs go.

I toss the article of clothing to Lapis carelessly. "Here. Put this on, and don't blame me if Pearl laughs when she takes off your shirt." That last phrase is downright painful for me to choke out, but I manage to fit a forced laugh somewhere at the end of it despite.

I'm hit with another verbal torrent of flustered demands to shut up before Lapis tells me to turn around while she puts it on. I agree, shrugging and staring at my blinds. The urge hits for me to turn around prematurely, but I shove it to the back of my mind with a sneer.

I mentally slap myself. What am I doing? I plaster on a scowl in hopes that it will disguise my now furious heated face.

"Alright, Peri. I'm decent," Lapis announces. I turn around and smirk. The bra hasn't done much in order to flatter her. Still, she looks stunning. Even in that infuriatingly ugly t-shirt and her chlorine-stained jean shorts. Her unwashed blue hair still reeks of chlorine from last night's swim meet, and she's not wearing any make up to hide the garden of acne on her jaw, but somehow, she looks better this way. Lapis has the envious kind of natural attractiveness that makes people gawk.

I nod and swallow a forming lump in my throat.

She gives me an awkward smile before inching towards the door. "Well, I'm sorry for leaving so soon, but I've got a date to be on time for! Even though I know you're gonna be an ass about it, wish me luck!"

She closes the door gently behind her. I mutter out a solemn good luck, before crashing on top of my bed. It's messy and unmade from last night's impromptu sleepover, and my dark pillow is stained with drool. My room is far too warm to curl up with a blanket, but I'm feeling far to vulnerable to go without. So I settle for throwing my comforter over my chest and sticking my legs out.

There's this nagging pain in my stomach- like I've eaten something that didn't agree. Except this stomach ache probably won't fade with a Tums tablet and ginger-ale.

I feel sick.

I know why, too, but I can't dare admit it to myself. Instead of doting on the dull throb in the pit of my gut, I hook my bony fingers around my laptop and swipe it so that I can distract myself. All I find to look forward to is a Skype message from Ronaldo. That big oaf has the grossest crush on me, and he's still convinced that I'm anything except a full on homosexual. This time, it's a link to the latest post on his blog. Mindlessly, I click on it. After what just happened, I think I need a good laugh.

Suddenly, I hear a notification pop. My phone. I shove the laptop off me and dig into my hoodie pocket for my cell. And staining the luminescent screen of my top-notch smartphone is a text from her. _Pearl._

 **Pearl:** _Hey, did we have homework from yesterday? I misplaced my planner in my locker._

I roll my eyes. Pearl and I are chem lab partners- good ones, too. We're at the top percentile of the class, and the difference between our scores is usually only a tenth of a percentage. For lab projects and partner work, we swapped phone numbers.

 **Me:** _yeah. were supposed to do that worksheet. arent you on a date with lapis or something._

I huff and roll my eyes. Of course Pearl would land a date with the captain of the swim team and still be more concerned about homework.

 **Pearl:** _Oh yes! But she's called and told me she was going to be a tad late. You're her best friend, right?_

 **Me:** _well shes mine, but i dont know about the other way around._

I feel a tug in my chest. Lapis is quite popular, fronting both the swim team and the co-monitoring the astronomy club with Pearl. She has tons of friends. Tons of best friends. But me? I just have her.

 **Pearl:** _Nonsense! She talks about you all the time. But anyways, I have a question. What's her favorite kind of music?_

As I read the text, I feel a little flip in my chest. Like something buried deep in there is gonna crawl out and show itself. I think it's called an emotion.

I want to tell Pearl all about how she gushes over Aerosmith. I want to reminisce about how in the seventh grade, she wouldn't leave the house without her Nirvana shirt tucked dutifully in her pocket or on her chest. I want to talk about the time when the Wizard of Oz was her favorite movie, if only because it mixed perfectly with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. I want to tell her about how Lapis spent an entire summer saving up money for her own Fender guitar, but fell short and had to buy a Schecter, and about how she learned to play that Schecter as if it were a Fender. But I can't fit all of that into one text, so I fall short and reply:

 **Me:** _She likes classic rock._

I get no reply, save for a thanks and goodbye from Pearl. Still, I'm glad. _She talks about me_ , I think, _she talks about me._

And there's this buildup of warm fuzziness in my throat that makes me come to the conclusion I'd been avoiding this entire time. I smash my nose into my loose sleeve and growl under my breath.

I'm still not over Lapis Lazuli.

I never tried to deny that I was undoubtedly gay, and I never tried to deny that I'd had not-exactly-gal-pal feeling for Lapis for the longest time; I just figured I was over them by now. A seventh grade puppy crush on my best friend that would fade with time only amplified and burrowed deep within my chest. But now that she so unceremoniously decided to ask Pearl out on a date, and now that I'm imagining them pressing teeth to collarbones, those feelings have decided that hibernation time is over.

I release a bitter sigh and let the words slip past my chapped lips. "I love Lapis. Fuck. I love her."

And the swirl of affirmation in my stomach is all I need to know that I'm not kidding myself.

Maybe if I wasn't so interested in books, then my life wouldn't be transforming into one.

I don't want to just hang around today and mope about unrequited love or whatever. But I really can't think of a game plan other than following Lapis and Pearl around like a creep. Maybe I'll take a walk around the boardwalk and get some donuts for myself. And if I happen to come across Lapis and Pearl, then that's just how it goes down.

I suit up in a loose white shirt and green shorts, and them I'm out the door. Mom and Dad twist their heads in shock as they hear the screen door slam behind me. They hardly see me going outdoors on my own.

I hurry out of there before I can be met with taunts of _"the beast has left her cave!"_ and _"be careful! Don't want the vampire to burn in the sunlight!"_

The boardwalk is only a few minutes away from my house, but the sun is beating down on my back, and I didn't bring any music along for the walk. Still, I have a crumpled five dollar bill in my sweaty palm, and I'm not leaving until it's replaced by three dollars and twenty-three cents in change and a glazed pastry.

God, my stomach is rolling like I'm on a roller coaster now. I'm debating internally on whether or not I really want to catch Lapis and Pearl. I know if I catch one image of Pearl's spindly fingers twined with Lapis', then I might barf. But I'm pretty thoroughly self-destructive, so I go for it.

I reach the sand-coated planks of the boardwalk in what feels like an hour and trudge to the Big Donut. I peer through the huge sun window to make sure Lapis and Pearl aren't sitting at one of the tables before marching in and slamming my five dollars on the counter. The air around me is cool and refreshing, and there's the low whir of an air conditioner to set my nerves. I wipe my sweaty brow on my sleeve and glace up at the register.

I'm greeted by a sly grin and a young man with curly orange hair leaning over the counter to meet my eyes. His name tag betrays his name- Lars- and I decide that it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

"What'll it be?" He asks, "single, double, triple, or breakup?"

"The hell is breakup?"

"It's an assorted box of six donuts, plus a Taylor Swift song suggestion written on a napkin. It costs a little extra, but I can totally get my friend to cover the two bucks for you."

"Charming." I smirk. He seems to think I'm serious, and as if on instinct, I cross my arms firmly over my chest. He snorts and leans back, giving me a wolfish grin as if to say, _"aw babe, don't be like that"_. I have to force myself not to give him my most opinionated appendage.

I mull over my options quietly, and because I'm lonely and bored and sort of feel like a garbage, I take Lars up on his offer and walk out of the Big Donut carrying a six pack with 'Shake it Off' written in sloppy permanent marker on my napkin. I walk slowly as I gnaw on the soft dough of a pink sprinkled pastry, and take the long way home, past the arcade and Funland. I can't help but to let my eyes flicker inside- hoping to catch them but dreading the possibility at the same time.

I don't see anyone with blue hair.

Back in my room, and now with a box of glazed guilt and powdered depression on my knees, I bring my computer screen back up and mull over the empty search bar before casually looking up a Taylor Swift song for the first time in my life.

As I lay on my bed, licking the icing from a chocolate donut, I feel my phone buzz. I tentatively ease it out and blink as I look upon the lock screen. It's a message from Lapis. My chest seizes and I almost choke on my food. Pretending I'm suddenly illiterate, I jam my phone under my pillow and crank my laptop speakers up to ten.

What could she possibly want? Maybe she seen me wandering around the boardwalk like a creepy loner. Maybe she's shoving her fingers into Pearl's mouth and she wants to update me on her progress. I groan and turn ideas over in my head for a solid five minutes before stuffing my hand under my pillow and yanking out my smartphone. I hold my breath as I read the message.

 **Lapis:** _i left my bathing suit at ur house. can u drop it off to me later?_

I sigh and feel the rush of nerves leave me, if only for a little bit. Relaxing a bit, I reply;

 **Me:** _no problem. i'll be over at six. how did your date go._

 **Lapis:** _it went pretty cool. ill tell u the details when i see u._

And with that I shove my phone back in my pocket and finish the remains of my doughnut. I wrap myself within my suffocating blanket snuggly, thinking that maybe if I hold the cloth tightly enough, it will keep me from totally falling apart. And as if everything suddenly makes sense to me, I smile.


	2. Do You Read Me?

**Hey! Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback! The story's a little slow right now since I'm trying to get all this exposition and world building out of the way, but it's going to pick up soon. Promise.**

 **To anyone who cares, I track "#the talking head game" tag on tumblr. **

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: Explicit sexual innuendo, Swearing, Slight ableist language,**

* * *

Do You Read Me?

I stare at the chipped wood of Lapis' front door, shifting from foot to foot. I debate just walking in like I usually do, but for some reason I have reservations about it now. I really don't want to hear about Lapis' date with Pearl- not unless it went worse than an attempt to build the Library of Alexandria with fireproof wood.

Admittedly, I'm a pretty bad friend.

I tighten my grip around Lapis' bathing suit and swallow my pride, knocking on the door. When there's no immediate response, I distract myself by checking my notifications on my smart phone, flicking from app to app restlessly. God, what's taking her? I slam on the door with my palms again (partly because my knuckles are kind of sensitive and it hurts when I knock to hard with them), and it swings open. I stop myself just before I smack Lapis square in the face.

She stares at my hand for a moment before quirking a brow. "Since when do you knock? For a second there, I thought you were one of those happy looking guys with the pressed shirts and bibles."

I can't find a witty reply, so I just shrug. "Common courtesy exists," I respond dryly, tossing her the still-damp suit.

"Because you're totally the epitome of good manners," Lapis rolls her eyes.

I crack a smile and flip her off, shoving past her in a much more typical fashion and making myself at home. Her house used to freak me out, because it looks like a photograph taken from a _Home Friendly_ magazine come to life, but over the years I've become accustomed to the stainless white furniture and room symmetry.

I ruin the Feng Shui of her model home by kicking off my sandals haphazardly in the doorway. Lapis shoots me a dirty look before methodologically fixing them on the shoe mat. She hates when I mess up her parent's precious order, and that's why I do it. Because I like pissing her off, and more importantly, I like pissing off her _parents_.

Like I said, I'm a pretty bad friend.

"Come upstairs," Lapis commands. I follow her like a dog on a short leash as she leads me up the carpeted steps and into the big blue paint bucket she calls her room.

Everything is blue, from the walls which are a muted powder, to the plush carpet, which is a deep royal. Her bedspread is a plain navy, and the blinds are the same brilliant faded shade as her hair. Along with being completely blue, it's also the messiest room in the house. It's the only room Lapis lets herself be messy in, and it shows. Clothes blanket the floor, and crumpled papers with rejected song lyrics are heaped up against a corner. Her guitar is the only thing with a sense of placement, leaning against her closet doors and secured in its case.

Since my room isn't much neater, I don't say anything as I brush the stale chip crumbs off her bed to make space for myself. I rest my elbows on my knees and force a cocky smile.

"So, how was fucking the teacher's pet? Painfully unsatisfying, like I assume it would be? Let me guess- she tried to catch up on her homework halfway through?"

I fake some whiny moans while holding my nose to mock Pearl, "Ah~ an e-endothermic reaction is- _oh my!"_

Lapis goes bright red, as expected. It's pretty damn funny, because while the prospect of Lapis actually making Pearl whisper sweet algebraic nothings into her ear sickens me, I can tell they didn't do anything too lewd. I can see the frog eyes of my sports bra showing through her thin shirt.

"Shut up!" Lapis whines, crossing her arms and stuffing her bathing suit in a random drawer. "We didn't even- you know!"

"Right, and I didn't eat a whole box of donuts before coming over," I retort, wondering for a brief moment if I should proud of that accomplishment.

"Dude," Lapis shakes her head at my retort, looking thoroughly disgusted.

Lapis crashes on the bed next to me, crossing her legs and running her hands through her hair in excitement. "Seriously though. Pearl's just- ugh! She's perfect!" Lapis smiles and wraps her arms around her chest to contain herself. I feel my stomach drop.

"Oh." I manage through a painfully forced grin. This is not what I wanted to hear.

"Yeah. She took me to the music shop a town over and we just listened together for hours. She even likes the same kind of stuff I do!" Lapis explains, unable to sit still. "I mean, her rock palette is a little bit unrefined, but I can fix that no problem!"

"So the princess likes rock, huh…?" I choke out. Something in my throat feels like it's burning, and I think I'm going to empty my stomach of that half-dozen pastries.

"Loves it," Lapis sighs. There's this airy quality to her voice that makes me quiver. Pearl said she talked about me often, but I highly doubt she's talked about me with that dreamlike tone.

"That's _nice,"_ I sneer. I want to get out of here. This house feels like it did the first day I came here- cold and overwhelming. I eye the door nervously, plastering a scowl on my face.

"Hey, are you alright?" I'm drawn from my thoughts by her voice and a snap of her fingers.

"I'm fine."

"Hey, look at me," Lapis murmurs, and I turn my head only to be trapped by those dumb blue eyes. I try to neutralize my scowl as much as possible; I try not to betray my emotions. I'm usually so good at this, but not this time.

Lapis tilts her head and purses her lips. "What's up?"

"Nothing."

"Something's wrong, Peridot. I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"I never said you were stupid."

"You insinuated- wait, no! Don't get off topic. Come on, I can't help you unless you tell me what's up," Lapis reasons. I shrug.

"It's nothing. I just- uh- I'm just dreading this thing I'm doing later," I lie, trying to keep a straight face.

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Lapis doesn't look fooled in the slightest, but at least she's offering the better of her doubt.

I think hard. What could I possibly be doing? I don't have any friends. She knows this. "I'm, uh- I have this thing I have to go to."

"Like what?"

I panic, eyes flickering around the room for some sort of focus point. But everything seems to be swirling as if it's melting around me. I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth. "It's a family thing. You wouldn't care," I say, and I wince because it sounds like a snarl. I pull my hand away from hers and use it cross my arms.

Lapis looks sufficiently hurt, but she does her best to brush it off. "Alright, I guess. I'm not gonna make you talk to me if you don't want to. Do you need a jacket for when you leave?"

I frown as I suddenly notice my shivering body. Goosebumps paint my arms and I stiffly rub my cold hands over them in a vain attempt to make them withdraw. Despite the vicious heat that made me sweat earlier today, it's rather chilly out now, and I'm aware of the temperature slipping lower with every passing minute. I'd definitely like something heavier on my shoulders for the walk home.

"Please," I respond, yielding to the frost of the night air.

Lapis digs through her heap of clothes scattered among the floor before digging out a big blue zip up. It's her swim team jacket, and to prove it "BEACH CITY HIGH SWIMMING" is plastered on the back in bold white lettering. Thanking her, I accept the clothing with unsure hands and try to fix it around my body. I'm a tad skinnier than Lapis, but I'm fuller around the chest and hips, so the thin fabric stretches awkwardly as I zip it up.

"I know it doesn't look like much, but it's sort of designed to keep you warm. Just give it a few minutes to adjust to your body temperature, alright?" Lapis explains, reaching forwards to fix the crooked shoulders. I recoil in shock, because her fingertips feel like white hot metal as she touches the exposed area between my collarbone and shoulder.

What the hell? I try to regain my composure, but the room feels like it's warping around me, and I feel like I went one too many times on the Teacup ride at Funland.

"I should go," I choke out, snagging my phone from her bed and stumbling out her door. I land myself outside her house in ten seconds flat, and I can feel her deep blue eyes burning into the back of my coat, so I don't dare turn around. I brush my long fingers over the spot where she touched me and wince. It feels like I've been scorched. What's wrong with me?

I heave a sigh. There's something about today that's really messing with my head. To be frank, I just want to go to bed and forget about everything that's happened. Maybe then I can reset myself and go back to not caring about Lapis. Maybe then I can stop making a mountain out of this blue-haired ant hill.

I can't pinpoint a word to describe the intense tugging in my chest. It's far too alien and strange. But to be fair, almost every emotion feels strange to me.

Like in the sixth grade, when I was convinced that I was a robot because I never smiled, never laughed, never cried, and hardly talked. I liked to pretend that my braces were the external wires jutting from my hard drive and that my glasses were the circle-rimmed eyes of a cyborg. I remember sitting alone at lunch and sketching overly detailed anime eyes in my notebook with half a chicken sandwich in my mouth. I never minded the loneliness much, though. If anything, it just felt natural.

I remember Lapis Lazuli sitting next to me for the first time. Her eyes were still young with the featherweight of childlike wonder, and her hair hadn't been cut or dyed yet, so it was in a long black ponytail. She plopped down at my table and began to sullenly eat her lunch. I'd asked if she was waiting for a friend or something.

"Nah. Mine are just being jerks. You don't mind, right?" She'd quirked a brow, a quizzical look I'd soon memorize.

Wordlessly, I'd shrugged, despite her presence actually bothering me quite a bit.

I figured that her fight with her friends would be temporary, akin to all middle school fights, but it wasn't, and she ended up sitting with me for the next four weeks without fail. We wouldn't share too many words, but she'd occasionally comment on my art.

Eventually I got a little dependent on seeing her at lunch. I wouldn't feel quite right unless she was across from me, silently gnawing on the toxic cafeteria food and complaining about how I never drew the rest of the face.

One day I decided that I would confront her about it.

"You're still fighting with your friends," I had stated with an air of skepticism. She shrugged.

"They're stubborn."

"One month of no talking stubborn?" I asked.

"Um- yeah."

I scowled. "They sound like assholes. Why don't you patch things up?" Deep inside, I hadn't wanted her to fix things, because that would mean that she'd leave me and I'd go back to being all alone. But I figured that I should get rid of her before she really grew on me, because I knew that the longer I held on, the more it would hurt to let go.

"Because."

"That's a dumb answer, you clod."

Lapis slammed her fist on the table. "God, Peri! If you want me to leave, just say so!" And then, she stood up and threw her lunch away- even though she hadn't eaten anything.

I was taken aback- I had never seen her act out or raise her voice. I had sort of picked up the assumption that she was a robot, just like me. Except maybe a prettier model. It was my first time understanding that I was talking to a _human._ A human with flesh, and pumping blood, and emotions that begged to be released. And as I first felt the beginnings of an emotion indescribable at the time, _empathy,_ I think I started to realize that maybe I was a little bit human, too.

The next afternoon, I waited for Lapis to sit down in front of me with her lunch tray and for all of this to have blown over. When she didn't arrive after so long, I glanced around the lunch room for her. Nothing. I couldn't catch her long black hair or her favorite blue hoodie for the life of me. I knew she wasn't absent- I'd seen her in the halls earlier that day.

And then something clicked, and I realized that she was avoiding me.

Against my better instinct (and the rules), I snuck out of the cafeteria and hurried to the girl's room. I didn't really know why at the time- it just felt _right._ When I walked in, I was greeted by Lapis Lazuli, who was sitting on the gross tiled floor, and shoving a spoonful of peas in her mouth. I pursed my lips and stepped forwards.

"Lapis?"

"Go away."

"What if I need to pee?" I asked, cracking my first human smile ever. Lapis' head whipped up, eyes wide as if she couldn't believe that the sixth-grade robot had made such a joke.

"Go in the boy's room," Lapis suggested, the hostile tone in her voice fading.

"And how am I using the urinals?"

"Dunno. Like a regular toilet, I guess." She smiled and then looked back at the floor. "Really though, you should go back to the cafeteria. You're missing lunch."

"I don't want to." I tapped her gently on the shoulder as a cue for her to scoot over. Lapis complied, although with hesitance.

We said nothing for a while. I had no idea how to handle this precarious situation, and neither did Lapis. We hadn't really any experience with these things. Eventually, she spoke up.

"You know they call you a bunch of bad stuff, right?"

"Who?"

"My friends. _Ex-_ Friends."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a weak grin. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

Lapis shoved another spork full of peas in her mouth. "Like," she chewed and swallowed, "they call you the r-word and stuff. They think you're a freak."

I felt my chest seize. I already knew that they talked behind my back, but it still hurt. "Oh."

"Yeah. And that's why I sat with you in the first place. They dared me to. It was supposed to be funny. But it's not, and now you probably hate me." She clenched her fist and looked up at me. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. It's- it's different now. You're not a freak, you're cool and you draw really good, and sometimes you make funny jokes without realizing it and- y'know?"

I had wanted to get mad at her. I wanted to stand up and abandon her- friendless and sitting on the bathroom floor. Maybe then people would make jokes about her. But I fought the urge. I didn't want to play robot anymore.

"It's fine. I should've known. You can sit with your friends now. I don't care." I mumbled, even though I so obviously did.

"No, I don't want to anymore." She had announced. I knitted my eyebrows and looked up, catching her gaze. For some reason, I couldn't look away.

"Are you sure? I'm not making you do this for me," I mumbled.

Lapis shook her head and stood up, dumping her trash in the bathroom sink and grabbing my hand. "I want to do this for you. You're like, my best friend."

I froze up and bumped my head on the nearby sink from shock. Best friend? As in- the most liked? The friend that was the _best?_ My eyes wide, and my jaw slack, I tried to come up with some form of returning the favor. Instead, I ended up grabbing her by her shirt collar and screaming: "DO YOU LIKE SNAKES?!"

And she had said yes.

Now, as I sit at home alone, petting Alduin as he curls up on my lap, I try to imagine where Lapis sat the first time she came over my house. I can't remember if it was on my bed, or in the corner, and I don't know for sure, but I think that bothers me.

I'm not tired, but I shove Alduin back in his cage. He's a pain to shove in there, because he coils around my arm as if he knows that he's getting put back, but I manage it. He immediately shoves his face to the glass and sticks out his tongue. I pretend that he knows how upset I am and that he's trying to make me feel better.

I press my finger up to the glass and stare into his eyes. He squirms again.

"Night," I hum, retreating from his cage and plopping down on my bed. It's hardly past seven-thirty, but I'm exhausted. I settle my laptop on my stomach and set it to auto-play, deciding to binge watch some old cartoons to relax.

I fall asleep by the fifth episode of Sailor Moon.

* * *

 **Kudos to ABirdWhoSquawks, Anon, Angel, Greggy, and the handful of unnamed guests for reviewing, as well as everyone who favorited and followed. You're the best.**


	3. Lapis Gets Sucked into a Vacuum

**Hey! Remember when I said that this story would be switching perspectives? Time to finally utilize that. It's only going to alternate between Peridot and Lapis, so I'll let you use context to figure out who narrates what chapters. I tried really hard to make their voices distinct, but eh.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Sexual Innuendo, Descriptions of a Panic Attack/Anxiety Attack, Swearing, PDA.**

* * *

Lapis Gets Sucked into a Vacuum

I feel it too.

That flash of heat when I touch her- it sends sparks running up my hand like it's a charge through my copper veins.

I know she doesn't notice, but I pull my hand back and stare at it like it's a mutant. Like _I'm_ a mutant.

Peridot jumps away from me and lunges for her phone. Shit _,_ I think. Did I hurt her? Did I say something? I'm frantically trying to replay the events that just occurred in my head to pinpoint the exact moment I fucked up, but I'm shooting blanks. Was it because I touched her? I touch her all the time! What's different about this time?

In a desperate attempt to calm her, I attempt to lock eyes. That usually works, because she has a hard time breaking eye contact once she creates it. Except her eyes are too frantic to focus on anything in the room for more than a second or two, and they dart from side to side too quickly for me to grasp. She looks like a frightened animal.

"I should go," Peridot whimpers, clearing my house like a track star. I squeeze my fists. What did I do wrong?

I watch her as she disappears down my street. The bold writing on the back of the coat that once welcomed me into the swim team now mocks me as it fades from my sight.

There's a tug in my gut that makes me want to follow her, but I fight it. I don't exactly know what I did, but it certainly warranted some space between us.

I settle down on my bed, and thrash around a bit in the covers before I'm comfortable. I don't have swim practice to look forward to when I wake up thanks to the ill-timed meet, and I don't have any weekend plans. I was going to ask Peri if I could crash at her house, but it's pretty damn obvious that she's not an option right now.

I groan and shove my face into my pillow, trying my best to clear my mind and relax.

My thin pillowcase is dark and warm, just like Peridot's room. I try to pretend I've got her nauseating incense clogging my nose, and manage a weak smile. It's pretty sad, but it beats facing the realization that I'm alone and that I've successfully scared off my best friend.

My empty house replies: "Just like you scare off everybody".

I tell it to fuck off, because I'm having an angsty teenage moment and it's being fucking rude.

* * *

"Lick this," I say, grinning. The warm afternoon sun beats down on my dark shoulders, and I'm successfully frying like a well-done fish stew pizza, but I've never felt more at ease.

Pearl scrunches up her face and quirks a brow. I waggle the ice cream in her nose once more, urging her to take a bite. "Come on," I whine.

I worry a bit for her. She never eats, like _ever_. The only thing I've ever seen her regularly consume is the seemingly endless collection of Altoids she carries around. And it shows. She's a sentient beanpole, with a lithe figure and jutting shoulder blades. She's the type of person who you never want to bend over, because her spine stretches against her skin and it looks like it's going to snap if she goes any further.

Pearl's face is red as she takes a tentative swipe at my dessert with her tongue.

"Happy?" She asks, trying to seem miffed.

"Happy," I affirm, taking a monstrous bite of the cold treat.

We're still trying to get the hang of this dating thing. Since our first date a week back, we've gotten progressively more relaxed around each other, but we're still more awkward than an accidental sex scene in the film your parents picked out for movie night. It's not as if we haven't _met_ before- this is just new territory.

I mean, we've been co-piloting astronomy club as since seventh grade. In fact, our friendship is almost as long-lasting as my friendship with Peridot.

I cringe at the thought. Peridot is still refusing to talk to me.

Well, she hasn't outright _refused_ \- it's technically been more of a mutual ignoring match between us. But it's still bothering me. We've always pushed through our arguments before (and trust me, we've had our fair share of arguments) but this is _different_. What happened wasn't a fight, and it wasn't an argument. I don't really know _what_ it was, to be completely honest. And I don't know how we can patch up a hole that doesn't exist.

But I'm not thinking about Peridot right now. I'm thinking about the beautiful girl in front of me.

Pearl shudders and takes a bite out of a chocolate donut. I follow her tongue as she licks the excess icing from her bottom lip, finding my brow to be subconsciously raising in interest.

"What?" Pearl asks, covering her mouth with her hand. She slips a breath mint from her purse and pops it in her mouth, chewing with a stiff jaw.

I give her a low chuckle and squeeze her palm. "You're kind of gorgeous," I explain, earning a laugh and a gentle slap on the shoulder.

"Stop that!"

"It's true!"

We break off into silence. I watch the sun entertain a playful game of hide-n-seek behind the clouds, and I pretend to miss it every time it disappears within the herd of cumulus'. I kind of envy it. I can't imagine how nice it must feel to just hang around with no agenda. I sigh and lean on my hand.

Pearl tilts forwards and blinks, pulling her hand from mine to brush my cheek. I whip my head up and find her eyes. Big, blue, and expressive. Too full of emotion to hold even the ghost of a secret. They hardly hang on to mine for a moment before darting elsewhere. So unlike Peridot's which just burn into my skull until I turn away.

"Hey," Pearl whispers. "Are you alright? You seem a tad, how do you say, out of it?"

I shrug. "I'm alright."

Pearl shakes her head. "What's the matter?"

I feel a spike of agitation and rip away from her hand, "It's _nothing!"_ I growl.

It's only when Pearl reels back with an expression that's a mix between fear and anger do I calm down. I take a weighted breath and force myself to relax. "Sorry."

Pearl almost says something, but decides against it and tentatively presses her long fingers against my arm. My ice cream drips over my hands and legs. I lick off the melted food and take a bite of the treat. My heart's not even in it enough to make a lewd joke about the white stuff dripping all over me.

I sigh, standing up and throwing the rest of the waffle cone and half a scoop of vanilla into the garbage can with much more force than required. I plop back down on my seat and shove a sugar-coated finger in my mouth.

"I'm sorry if I-," I cut Pearl off before she can finish.

"No! No no no!" I yelp, so loudly that she jumps. I don't want her to think that my shitty mood is her fault. In truth, my attitude-milk has been expired since last week, and if anything, she's the employee that keeps editing the "best-if-purchased-by" date.

There's an extended silence before I speak up again.

"It's Peridot," I admit. "She still isn't talking to me. I don't know what I did." I take my slobbery hand from my mouth and rub it on my shorts. Pearl shakes her head and hands me some napkins, her face twisted up like she swallowed a lemon. "Sorry," I shrug, accepting them. Pearl nods in approval as I conceal my gross fingers in decorative napkins.

"From what you told me, it's quite clear that you aren't the problem," Pearl huffs.

"Yeah, but that's just my version of the situation. Peridot sees things differently." I grumble, knitting my brows. Peridot's always had a different way of experiencing things than me, and it's half the adventure figuring out what she's feeling, because she's not vocal about these things. Like, at _all._

"Right," Pearl grumbles, unimpressed. "Like how she saw us not working out. Before we even went on a formal date."

"Hey, ease up," I warn. "Ignoring me or not, Peri still outranks you in the list of _Lapis' Bitches."_

Thankfully, I manage to squeeze a laugh out of Pearl and the tense wire between us slackens. She finishes her donut and brushes the crumbs off her sundress with those dainty fingers and a look that a suburban mom might give to a spaghetti stain on the counter. She throws the box away and returns back to her chair, laying her head down on her arm. She extends a hand and I dutifully take it, immediately using my thumb to circle the back of her palm.

Wow, she looks stunning. It's not my thing to take time and appreciate the way light works, or how colors mash together, but if I were a photographer, I'd've filled up a camera roll and a half by now. The sun reflects off of Pearl's pale skin and blue dress like it was made to do so. It's a crisp, clear quality that tastes like ice water and smells like grass.

Pearl glances at me again with those crystal eyes and her lips quirk up. I feel my heart racing like I'm in the middle of a relay and falling behind.

Wow, I'm super lame. No wonder Peridot doesn't want to talk to me.

"Hey," Pearl mutters, breaking me from my trance. "I'm sure she'll come around. You're best friends, right? And if she doesn't, then you-," Pearl sits up and points at me with her free hand, "-are going to have to relinquish your pride and be the bigger person."

"Will do," I laugh, bastardizing the stern expression gracing her features. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. "Aw, come on, Pearl. Love me," I croon.

"You're so strange." She huffs, though there's no real venom in her tone.

Suddenly, She's grabbing my hands and pinning them down on the table. Before I know it, she's leaned over and pressing our chapped lips together.

I yelp and push back, eyes wide. My breath hitches.

My body suddenly feels very cold, like it's being isolated within a vacuum. I can't feel the gentle breeze brushing my hair out of place, or the sun searing the back of my neck. I can't feel anything except for the pounding of my own heart. My eyes are wide, and I'm wheezing through my nose.

I'm trapped.

"O-Oh! Lapis, I'm so sorry! Did I do something?" Pearl says frantically, yanking me from my disassociation. I shake off and take a deep breath to calm down. I put on a cocky front to hide the spots in my vision behind. And I wait until I can feel the burning sun on my skin to speak.

"I-I was just taken by surprise," I tell her, my voice wobbly and counterfeit.

"Besides," I smirk, my voice regaining it's tone, "I like it better when _I'm_ the one in control."

With that, we're kissing again, but this time it's me pinning Pearl's hands to the table and my body leaning forward. She whimpers into my mouth, and I eat it up. If there's something that Peridot would hate to hear, it's that I've been taking every chance I get to shove my tongue down this girl's long, pretty throat.

I love her when she's like this. Melting into a kiss and caring less about what anyone nearby thinks. She tastes like breath mints and sugar, and a musty hint of something that I can't place. And that's something is addictive like nicotine, because there's nothing I want more than to breathe it in and never stop.

"Lapis!" Pearl whines when I hang on to her cherry gloss decorated skin with my teeth for just a moment before transitioning from her lower lip to her neck. She squirms and I let out a laugh, easing off of the rough stuff to give her gentle pecks. We're in public, I remind myself, save this stuff for the National Geographic nature documentary.

Pearl can't talk right for a solid ten seconds afterwards, blubbering about something or another. I'm sure she drops the phrase, "You're so beautiful" at least twice, though, and it just makes me smile harder.

"Just shut up, okay?" I take her hand again. She nods, furiously red and still overwhelmed from my little ambush.

"Will do! Affirmative! Not a problem! Ha! Ha!"

I let her go on with her rambling, and begin to drift in thought. I almost want Peri to catch us here- kissing and holding hands and doing all that other weird couple stuff she hates. Maybe then she'll see that Pearl's not a bad person for me after all. At very least, she'll get jealous that she's not the only person I can have fun with.

Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about my best friend while I'm on a date with my _girlfriend._

Yeah, that's probably a good game plan.

 _And yet,_ I wonder what she would say if she caught us. Knowing her, she'd just hustle off again with some bullshit excuse. Maybe even with a snarky one-liner. Her cheeks would heat up, and maybe she'd tuck her hands into the pockets of my swim team jacket (I mean, if she's wearing it, of course). I wonder if she'd even say anything. Maybe she'd just hide back behind the Big Donut and leering at us before storming away.

I scrunch my eyebrows and stiffen up, turning around. Did I just hear the Big Donut's door bell ring? I twist around in my seat to steal a glance, but there's nobody there.

"Lapis? Are you alright?" Pearl asks, breaking out of her stuttering as concern shines through. I offer her a smile and pretend that she's the one at the front of my mind. It's not hard.

"Oh, I just thought I saw something back there. It's nothing." I can tell she's skeptical. Shit. "Must've been a reflection from your radiant skin," I add quickly.

It's a weak hook to change the subject, but Pearl bites anyways.

She rolls her eyes and runs her fingers through my hair before getting up. "Let's head to the beach." She suggests.

I smile and comply, letting her take my hand and drag me close to the ocean. There's that inexplicable tug in my gut once more, but this time, it's connected to Pearl, and it pulls us together as we head towards the shore line. I see it as a brilliant red string that ties around our hands and necks.

Still, I'd enjoy it more if it wasn't so knotted with my other worries right now.

* * *

 **Kudos to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed! Ya'll are great!**


	4. Sadie Sings Taylor Swift

**To be honest, I wasn't originally planning on writing this chapter, but somewhere in my revision stage I decided that I needed the extra buildup for chapter 5.**

 **I really hope I nailed the bittersweet mix of humor and angst on this one. That's kind of my goal for this story. Also, this is going to be one of many chapters where a character cries, so be prepared for 5,000 vaguely distinct descriptions of tears.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Swearing, Brief mention of suicide, Brief mention of murder, Descriptions of disassociation, Mention of blood**

* * *

Sadie Sings Taylor Swift

I burst into the Big Donut, tears welling in my eyes. My hand clutches my lower stomach with fervor, and I nearly collapse onto the counter once I reach it. I'm sort of stuck in the mindset that I want to kill myself right now, but if I kill myself then I can't go on hating everything that breathes. And right now, hating everything that breathes is kind of giving me a rush.

"Cramps?" A gentle voice asks. I nod feverishly.

The pretty young lady who works along Lars is on duty today (according to the name tag on her uniform, her name is Sadie), which unfortunately means that I'll actually have to pay for my donuts this time. I dig into my pockets and slam seven crumpled dollars on the counter, which she accepts without questioning. I sigh in relief as I press my back to the cool display case while she arranges my pastries into a box.

I'm not saying that my period cramps are the absolute worst, but it's definitely not fair that I should be punished like this for not getting pregnant. I mean, a gift basket with a little note saying, "congrats on not getting knocked up- see you next month!" wouldn't hurt. But nope. Instead, I'm cursed with the worst cramps and emotional turmoil that mother nature decided I could handle without passing out.

Sadie gets me my donuts dutifully and passes them to me. I thank her with a heavy breath and turn to step out.

My hand's on the glass door's handle when I freeze up. Occupying one of the picnic tables outside is the two people I'd like to see the least right now- Lapis and her prick of a girlfriend. I furrow my brows and subconsciously step back, pursing my lips.

Just my fucking luck.

I'm not going to lie- I've totally been avoiding them. Since last week, I've refrained from talking to Lapis completely. I'm still offhandedly angry at her for hooking up with Pearl and disregarding my obvious discomfort about it. And even if I wasn't, I still wouldn't be able think of a single word to say to her. At least, not one that she wouldn't find insulting.

"Are you okay?" Sadie asks, her voice delicate. I shake my head.

"C-can I sit at a table?" I stammer, trying to put distance between myself and the big glass windows. The last thing I need is for them to turn their heads and get a big whiff of the sad loser buying a box of donuts for herself.

"Here, take this one," Sadie mumbles, leaving the counter to guide me to a booth next to the drink machine. I thank her quietly, stumbling back and taking a seat.

Although Pearl and Lapis are the absolute last people I want to see, my eyes can't seem to pry themselves away. It feels like I'm watching a horror movie, except the killer is a pair of hormonal teens and the tremolo violin score is replaced by the soothing jazz playing over the Bug Donut's PA. I shove a glazed pastry in my mouth and sigh in relief. For a moment the sugary dough distracts me from them. But then I look up.

Bile collects in my throat when I notice how naturally Lapis' hands are intertwined with Pearl's. Thankfully, from behind the glass walls of the Big Donut, their voices are mute. Still, if I'm not careful, I'll see every lovesick expression on their faces. Shit, it's like I'm trapped in the _Twilight Zone_ of jealousy.

The way Lapis looks at Pearl makes me furious. It's a half-lidded expression, with a lazy smile and a ruddy tinge to her cheeks. I've been her best friend for years, and I've never made her smile like that. How can the most uptight, annoying girl in the entire world make her do that with ease? What does she have that I don't?

Everything, the little voice in my mind reminds me.

She has a pretty face, great grades, a stellar (although pretentious) personality, and now? Now she has Lapis too.

And I've got a box of donuts and the obligatory sympathy of the cashier.

Damn. I'm crying, aren't I? Wow, this day just keeps getting better.

The heavy droplets that fall from my eyes to table affirm my fears, and I sink down into my chair, hoping that Sadie won't notice. I hate crying in front of others. My eyes gets red and puffy, my nose leaks, and I wear an expression that makes it look like I'm getting stabbed in the gut. I guess crying is the one thing that can make my outside look just as rotten as my inside, and for that, I hate it.

And just to top it all off, Sadie catches me. With the store void of other costumers to attend to, she retreats from the counter and grabs a Styrofoam cup. She fills it with something from the drink machine and sets it in front of my face.

"You okay?" Sadie settles a straw into the cup and nudges it towards me.

"I'm fucking shitting rainbows!" I howl, breaking off into a mixture between a sob and a laugh. I shove the straw in my mouth and take a gulp. It's ginger ale. I run my fingers down my agitated stomach.

"What's wrong?" Sadie murmurs, settling down in the seat across from me. I don't say anything, but it doesn't take a genius to follow my eyes to the couple outside.

"You know them?" She follows up.

I only nod and take a sullen bite of my food, wiping my runny nose on my sleeve.

Through a mouthful of sugary dough, I explain, "She's my best friend. I never make her smile like that."

Sadie frowns, pressing her lips together and looking down. "Yeah, I get what you mean," she mutters, tangling her fingers together to occupy herself.

I nod stiffly, holding back a response. I pray that Sadie won't talk more, because right now I'm bursting under the seams and I feel like all that it would take to make me snap is single misplaced gesture.

She doesn't speak up. Not for a long time. She just tries to ease the pain with her presence. And for just a little bit, it works. But then Pearl is pushing forwards, pressing her lips to Lapis', and using her spindly fingers to pin my best friend's wrists to the table, and Sadie's comfort is void.

My chest seizes, a searing iron claw clutching it like I'm a cheap prize in a toy machine. My eyes are replaced with buttons that never close, and my lungs with cotton that never breathes.

Sadie yanks me from my catatonic state. It's a good thing, too, because I was unwittingly tightening my grip on the Styrofoam cup, and it probably would've split if I'd've been left to my own devices for a second more.

"How long?" Sadie whispers.

"I can't even remember anymore," I admit. "You?"

"Same."

And suddenly, the fact that we're both lonely and upset hurts, but the fact that we're lonely and upset together makes it hurt just a little less. And because I need to pretend that someone actually gives a damn, I take her hand. The sharp contrast between her soft pudgy fingers and my brittle joints proves both strange and comforting.

"Do you hate her?" Sadie asks me with a quirk of her brow in Pearl's direction. I want to say yes, but the more I turn it over in my head, the more it sounds like a lie.

Finally, I settle on, "I want to."

She's perfect, a little voice at the back of my mind tells me. You've never seen Lapis this happy. You've never made her smile like that. You've never been able to pin her down like Pearl can. She's better for Lapis than you are. And you can't bear to admit that, because you're a jealous little cretin with one friend and a shitty attitude.

I block out my inner monologue to breathe and because wow, _rude._

"She's bad for Lapis," I assert, although I know I'm lying to myself.

She's not bad for Lapis. _I'm_ bad for Lapis.

Sadie gives my hand a reassuring squeeze, and I try to quench the fire in my stomach with a drink of ginger ale.

It almost works.

Sadie lets me cry for a little longer before letting go of my hand and standing up. My eyes betray a quizzical look, to which she answers with a grin and a nonverbal sign for me to wait one second.

Sadie retreats behind the counter and fiddles with the PA box. The jazz music echoing around the diner cuts off as she unplugs the radio and attaches her phone to the aux chord, flicking through her music library.

I'm greeted with a familiar banjo riff, and by the first line of the opening verse, a dumbstruck grin replaces my previous look of melancholy. I sniff and wipe my nose again, shaking my head. My jaw is slack.

 _"Unbelievable,"_ I remark, "you didn't-" I drag my hand down my face, wiping away my tears.

"You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset," Sadie sings. I decide that I like her voice. It's very reserved and sweet, and it mashes perfectly with the outdated music.

I watch her as she belts out the lyrics to Taylor Swift's, _You Belong With Me_ , dancing around the Big Donut like the tiled floors are waxed marble. She wiggles her eyebrows at me suggestively and holds out her hand for me to take. I swat it away.

"No, no I'm not doing this, you clod. I hate this song," I say, keeping down a laugh that bubbles in my throat.

"Aw, come on. Can't be sour forever." Sadie says psyching herself up for the chorus.

"Ugh. Don't you at least have a dubstep remix or something?" I snap, crossing my arms. Despite my outward agitation, I still hum along to the chorus when it comes on, failing miserably at hiding a smile.

And suddenly, Pearl and Lapis become nothing more than lyrics to a jealous girl's love song. I like them better that way. It makes them seem less complex. Less like people and more like the placeholders. For the entire four minutes and nineteen seconds of the song, they stop being real. They become nothing more than pronouns that describe an idea, and a single note in a score of music.

And if Sadie can find solace in that, then I guess I can swallow my pride long enough to sing the stupidly catchy chorus along with her and tap my fingernails on the table to the beat.

Eventually, however, the song is over and the feeling fades. And we're both left trying to remember what the last bittersweet chord sounded like.

I look into the donut box. One left. It's pink and frosted, with little sprinkles dotting it.

"Have that," I pass it to her.

"Oh I couldn't I-,"

"I'm not asking," I say with what can only be described as a smile. Sadie accepts it with a grateful nod and takes a bite.

"I've gotta get going," I explain. "If I have to relate to another Taylor Swift song, I'm gonna retch."

"That's fair," Sadie grins, helping me clean up my mess. I don't know what I'm going to do if Lapis and Pearl see me, but at this point, I really don't care. My eyes are red rimmed, and my stomach hurts with the aftershock of a vicious cramp, but under all that, I feel good.

"Thanks for having a Crying Breakfast Friend moment with me. Really," I let the ghost of a laugh leave me. I hope she gets the reference.

"Not a problem. And Peridot?"

"Yeah?"

"Tie this around your waist."

She hands me an apron and my eyes go wide. I direct them to my ass, and sure enough, I've got a big ugly stain on my light blue jeans. My eyes widen- a stain like that should not bear such a striking resemblance to Texas. Blushing furiously, I accept the apron, checking the bench to make sure I didn't cause a small-scale biohazard. Thankfully, it's clean. Still, I wipe it down with a rag to make sure.

"Thanks," I mumble, face red with humiliation.

"Call me if you ever need to have a talk," Sadie assures, heading back behind the counter and writing her number on a napkin. I accept it thankfully and shove it in my pocket, assuring her that I will.

I take a deep breath before I push through the doors of the Big Donut and greet the hot outside air. The bell behind me rings in alarm, and it's all I can do to hurry away before Lapis turns her head. I'm almost afraid that she sees me darting away from them down the boardwalk.

But she's oblivious.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who gave this story a review, favorite, follow, or even just a read! You guys are great!**

 **Greggy: Dude, I'm glad that you enjoy the story so far, but please chill. I'm on a 5-7 day update schedule which isn't that bad considering I have to plan ahead, write, revise, and re-revise. **

**Also special thanks to goinggrimdark for the awesome fanart! You can check it out on tumblr under "#The Talking Head Game".**


	5. I (Surprisingly) Can't Read Minds

**This actually came out on the later side, sorry! This chapter was a pain in the ass to revise- especially the dialogue. I ended up deleting over 2,000 words and re-writing them and I'm still not sure if I'm happy with the end result.**

 **Also what is pacing lol. I decided that 4 chapters of building sexual tension was enough and now we get down to the fun _why-did-i-think-this-was-going-to-be-a-lighthearted-story_ bits. To be fair, I originally wanted this to be the third chapter, and it was going to be much, much worse. Also this is a little more... depressing than the past chapters to stick with the mood. Whoops. **

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: Excessive Swearing, Violence, Brief Nudity, Descriptions of anxiety, Descriptions of anger issues, PDA**

* * *

I (Surprisingly) Can't Read Minds

So this is it. I swallow the sad little lump in my throat that must be my pride.

Pearl insisted that I needed to talk to Peridot, because it's been made abundantly clear that she won't initiate any conversation. So here I am, no note cards, no plan, and only half an idea about how this will turn out.

If I had to place my bets, I would say not well.

Granted confronting Peridot during her least favorite class isn't the best idea, but gym is the only time where I actually get any chance to talk to her at school.

Her disgust towards physical education is one of the only things she's vocal about, but to be honest, I think it's a good thing that it's a required course. Unfortunately, I think Peridot has to disagree. She acts like she's a cyborg and her own sweat shorts out her wires.

It definitely doesn't help that it's the swimming semester.

Every year, we take two semesters of gym- track and field, and swimming. I don't know what it is about Peridot, but she sinks like a stone. And since I'm the swim team captain, the coach has entrusted me to tutor the 'less physically adapted students' as my credit.

On the upside, I don't have to do two classes worth of laps, and on the downside, my grade rests on the improvement of the kids I'm training. And since my spot on the swim team depends on me getting a 2.5 GPA, I have to kick it into high gear before the end of the semester. I feel kind of bad about drilling these poor kids everyday, but I'm already teetering on a weak 2.7, and I can't risk it dropping even more.

Lots of girls claim that the locker rooms are the worst part of gym, but after a year of hanging out nude with your buddies from the swim team, you sort of lose your modesty.

I switch into my bathing suit while looking someone in the eye and explaining the butterfly stroke. They seem a little flustered by my unabashed body, (what can I say? I'm irresistible) but I don't care much. I don't even mind that their gaze flickers down to my chest and lower still as I strip my school clothes.

From the corner of my eye, I see Peridot peer around the bathroom stalls with some other girls who are too self-conscious to show skin around the rest of us.

I'm worried that she's insecure about her body. She constantly hides it behind long jeans and baggy sweatshirts- which is unfortunate because confidence would look good on her. It's not like she's got a horrible physique either. Her hips and chest are full enough to notice, and the small amount of pudge on her stomach is almost cute. Despite, I see her skitter into the stall and lock the door.

When she comes out, she's wearing the required one piece with the optional bathing shorts. I repress a groan. Those things make swimming so much more difficult. Yet she insists on wearing them because she likes to have pockets to shove her hands into, and something to cover her thighs.

The bell tolls, and our batch of students flood out into the pool deck. Our school's swimming pool is a privilege, really. It's a half a football field in length and wider than two buses nose to tail. Maybe it's the fact that we're located right by the beach, but our pool is disproportionately large. Whatever it is, I'm not complaining.

The deck smells like thick chlorine and humidity. A big box fan whirs gently by the lifeguard chair, and we can hear the fat droplets of water as they fall from the ceiling. I take a deep breath and smile. This is home.

There's nothing more familiar to me than the feeling of smooth water rolling over my shoulder blades or the pungent scent of chlorine. Even my youngest memories with my parents were hazy summer days swimming at the city pool until it closed. The water is my place.

I collect my batch of sinkers while the more adept swimmers get their drills from the teacher. We head to the back half of the pool, close to the huge windows, and I shove my kids into the cold water one by one. One whimpers and rubs their drenched shoulders, and others send me dirty looks. Unfortunately, the shallowest part of our pool is also the coldest.

I hover by Peridot. Usually I shove her in just like the rest of them, but I'm too afraid of freaking her out to touch her. Drawing my eyebrows together, I get close behind her and order her to get in. She doesn't protest, easing herself into the water and suppressing a shiver.

Now it's my turn. Because I'm a bit of a show off, I hurl myself into the icy liquid arms first in a perfect dive. We're not supposed to go head first into the shallow end (in fact, we even have those little 'NO DIVING' signs with the cartoon diver getting a concussion on the pool deck), but I have enough control to just skim the top and curve upwards before slamming against the bottom. When I breach the surface, the sinkers glare at me. I shrug. It's not my fault that they're so easy to upstage.

My band of bad swimmers includes two underclassmen, Peridot, and a senior who skipped gym her entire highschool career and is paying for it now.

"Alright!" I yell, gathering their attention. "Let's get going! I want to see you paddle from here to the halfway mark and back!"

Being in a leadership position never really bothered me. I've always been naturally good at keeping control among others. Peridot says I'm naturally charismatic, but in this case, my scowl is stronger than my grin.

The underclassmen smile at each other and propose a race before kicking off and performing the sloppiest excuse of a breast stroke that I've ever seen. I can't complain, though. They're still improving far better than the others, and some days they even have the courtesy to pretend to like gym class.

The senior groans before lazily dunking her head and kicking her legs behind her. I'd like to command her to pick up the pace, but she can't hear me underwater and she knows it. Maybe she isn't a strong swimmer, but when it comes to pissing me off, she can hold her breath for a full minute.

Since our first week of class, she's been open with her contempt for me. She hates how bold I am, and she hates how snugly I fit into my superiority role. But I don't care. As long as she can swim from one side of the pool to the next, I don't give a damn what she thinks about me.

My eyes turn to Peridot, who sighs and kicks off, hardly keeping her nose above the water as she struggles to paddle.

"Come on, come on!" I snap, pursuing her. My strokes are long and lazy, but they're practiced enough to take me to her without strain. I swim in pace with her and correct her as we go.

"Stop swimming vertically. Come on, use your upper arms." I instruct. I have a habit of picking on her because she's my friend, but more so because she's the weakest swimmer here. And if anyone's taking my grade down, it's her.

The two underclassmen pass us going back. They're still racing at an underwhelming speed, but I shoot them some encouragement anyways.

"Nice job! Hey, keep your legs under!"

They tuck their legs beneath the water at my instruction and put on a burst of speed till the end. I don't look to see who wins, but judging by the cheer of victory, I can make an educated guess.

"Come on, Peridot. You're getting upstaged by _freshmen_." I groan.

"What a tragedy," Peridot snaps back between grunts of effort. I sigh. At least she's talking to me now. The week before she would hardly offer me a grunt of acknowledgement. We're getting somewhere here.

I want to talk to her about the incident, but it's clogged in my throat like the hair at the bottom of the shower drain, and Peridot's shitty disposition certainly isn't helping.

With her permanent scowl and sharp tongue, Peridot is more or less unapproachable. Intimidating, almost. Not physically- more so in the way that a well-versed lawyer's voice echoes about a courtroom. She has a talent of putting people at a power imbalance from impressions. She knows what makes others tick.

Whether she realizes it or not, she has the potential to really hurt people. And because her infinitely complex clockwork is masked by her smart mouth and dismissal of other's feelings, she can keep from getting hurt herself.

And that's why I'm so scared of confronting her.

I lead her back to the edge of the pool. She takes five full minutes to make what should be a thirty second trip, and I can already tell the others are getting impatient with her. I'm not surprised- the daily exasperation with Peridot's poor athletic ability is prominent even along the worst swimmers.

Easing her to the edge, I place my hands on my hips. My students look at me with a bitter expectancy- like they already hate my orders, but know that they're lost without them. I wonder if this is how it feels to be a teacher.

I clear my throat.

"Good job, guys. Now do some laps. Freestyle. I'm gonna help Peridot. Don't stop until I tell you to." I demand.

The senior rolls her eyes. "Seriously?"

"Do you have a problem?" I question, raising my brow.

Arguing is a daily thing between us, because we're both trying to fit into the dominant side of an unspoken dynamic. It's exhausting because tension from the day before always manages to roll over into the next. And I'm already on edge enough today without her trouble.

She glares daggers into my skull, locking her jaw. "No, it's just annoying that you cater to Peridot all the time because she's your girlfriend or whatever."

I clench my fists and glower at her, pressing down on my knuckles under the water and cracking them with my thumb.

"Oh, shut up," I hiss, eyes narrowed. "Look, I don't give a damn about what _you_ do in this class as long as you can keep my grade above a 2.5. Unfortunately she-," I gesture to Peridot with an exaggerated motion. "-is not as up there as you, meaning I need to help her sometimes. And before you accuse me of playing favorites, consider that I already have a girlfriend, and it's _not_ her."

I stress those last words especially, the creases between my brow deepening as I lock our eyes and wait for her to look away. She relents after a few seconds, and I turn back to the others.

"Get going."

The senior growls as she shoves her nose into the water and starts to ease herself around the pool. The two underclassmen shoot me wary glances of silent submission as they follow suit, whispering to amongst each other.

Peridot looks thoroughly humiliated, although I wouldn't know why. Her eyes have a glassy quality, and she focuses on the ripples in the water that lap at her skin. And because I'm sick and tired of being careful around the feelings she never expresses, I only harden my expression as I glare at her.

"Don't be like that," I snap, "let's go."

Peridot doesn't move for a little bit, save for a stiff nod. Eventually, she submerges her chest and begins to wade through the water. I feel just a tad guilty for embarrassing her like that, but I brush it off. She's just being overdramatic over nothing, I tell myself.

Now's my best shot at talking to her, since we're in as about as private of a location as humanely possible in school, and she can't escape me to avoid the confrontation.

Thankfully, the air is too clogged with the sounds of splashing water for others to tune into my conversations. With a deep breath, I follow her, lazily reverting to a front stroke.

"Are you okay? I lashed out," I apologize, correcting her posture and thoughtlessly grabbing her thighs to push them up. She whimpers and goes tense.

"Just fine." Peridot remarks, although her body language tells me the exact opposite. She doesn't even offer me a side-eye, opting to stare straight ahead. Her brows are furrowed, and she paddles hard and strong, as if she hopes to evade me.

"Look, about last week," I begin, trailing off.

"Forget about it. I panicked. I don't know what came over me. Sorry," Peridot hisses.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Something tells me that there's more going on in Peridot's head than she'd like to admit. I hate how I can never tell what she's thinking. I just want to know what I did wrong so that we can go back to being best friends again.

"I don't want things to be awkward between us," I confess.

"It's not. Can't you see? I'm _completely_ at ease."

Scowling, I swim closer to her and run my hand down her spine, resting it at her hip. I've done this countless times before to correct her movements, but this time she freaks. Peridot shoves me with as much of her strength as possible, nearly drowning herself in a frantic attempt to get away from me.

"Don't touch me!" She snarls.

I frown matter-of-factly and sigh. "See? Something's up."

Peridot shakes her head as if to say no, but once she sees my hands creeping over for another touch, she yelps and relents.

"Fuck you," she mumbles, her face glowing. I almost laugh- she looks like she mistook a bottle of Tabasco sauce for ketchup. Yet something about this situation tells me that laughing is probably not going to make things better, so I resist. Peridot shoves her face into the water to clear her blush.

"Look I don't know what I did, but-,"

Peridot interrupts me. "Nothing. You're infallible," she grumbles, venom lacing her words like hash.

"What's wrong?" I sigh, trying to keep my voice low. The senior laps us and purposely kicks water in my face. I wipe it off with a grimace.

"I'm overreacting, obviously," Peridot laughs, wearing the bastardization of a grin on her face. "Ignore me."

I knit my brows and ball my fists as I swim. "Is this about Pearl?" I ask, my voice hardening into a sneer.

"No!" Peridot breaks off into another cutting laugh. "Why would I care about that-,"

"Don't say it!"

"What? Whore? Slut?" Peridot spits, accentuating each slur with a wolfish tug at her lips. "Look, Lapis. I know _you're_ thoroughly whipped by her highness, but if I want to call the princess a bitch, then I will."

"Why do you hate the idea of us together so much?" I struggle to keep my voice low. The last thing I need is to get yelled at by the gym coach for discussing my personal matters when I should be discussing the front stroke.

"She's bad for you." Peridot states simply, like it's a fact she's reading from an outdated science book.

I lock my jaw, digging my fingernails into the palms of my fist. Pearl was right about Peridot being irrational about us. Peridot's never even seen us together! How can she know if Pearl is bad for me?

She doesn't know how Pearl makes me feel. She doesn't know that Pearl comforted me for hours when I was torn up over this stupid fight because I thought _I'd_ done something wrong. She doesn't know how much we've been through.

She doesn't know _anything._

"She's not bad for me," I snarl, tensing my muscles, and forcing myself to keep Peridot's slow pace. I want to jet the fuck out of here, but I started this, and I plan on ending it.

I snag her leg, rougher than before and ignore her strained yelp as I adjust it. Peridot rips away, using a hand to rub her thigh and struggling to get back into her position.

Because I'm in a mindset beyond caring about hurting her, I don't hold back when I retort, "She makes me happy, and you're just sad and jealous because she's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Oh?" Peridot asks with an air of incredulous tension. "Well then. If she's the _best damn thing_ that happened to you, then what the hell am I?"

She turns and tries to swim away from me, yet finds it fruitless as I effortlessly follow behind. Her lower lip trembles slightly enough to miss, but it's made prominent as the rest of her body is stiff as a board.

"You're my-,"

"Best friend, right?" Peridot cuts in, catching focus on the opposite edge of the pool deck. "Because you've made that _so_ abundantly clear."

It's silent for a long time. I feel the compulsion to adjust her posture because it's obvious she's overexerting herself, but she's making my job an increasingly difficult task, so I let her struggle. It's almost satisfying to watch her slap at the water in a vain attempt to keep her nose above the surface.

There's a thought in the back of my mind telling me that she's my best friend, but it diminishes with every passing moment. And since it's the only thing keeping my cool, I try to hang on to it with both hands before it's gone. And it's because of that nagging thought that I find the humor to try and fix this pathetic excuse of a mess even though my body is strung tight with agitation, and my throat is contracting in upon itself.

"Look," I say, anger bubbling on the undertones of my voice. "Pearl makes me _happy,_ okay? What do we have to do to make you see that? What do I have to do to make you accept us?"

God, I feel like I'm coming out to my parents again.

Peridot stops swimming to tread the water next to me. Honestly, I'm too shocked by the fact that she can tread water at all to tell her to keep swimming.

She locks me in with those emotionless gray eyes and purses her lips. Her intensity would typically throw me off, but not now. Not when I'm clenching and unclenching my fists and spitting every word through grit teeth. Not when my breathing is short and shallow like I'm suffocating with my head above the water.

Peridot seems to think for a long time about her answer. I almost get my hopes up thinking that she'll give a damn about how somebody else feels for once and apologize for the shitty way she's been acting.

But she's Peridot. And unfortunately, having the decency to apologize isn't really her thing.

"Break up with her," Peridot hisses finally. "I'll approve of your _disgusting_ relationship when it's broken up and over with."

That's it.

I can feel something in the back of my head snap, the last tendrils of my self control splitting in rage.

I hardly know what I'm doing as my eyes shoot open and I grab Peridot by her arm, dragging her to the poolside. She yells for me to stop and tries to wriggle out of my grip, but my hands hold fast. I hardly hear her choke as a sob catches in her throat. I hardly care as she dunks under the water and emerges again with a desperate gasp.

Red fills my eyes, and I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a rush as I rip her through the water like a child playing rough with a toy.

I slam her against the poolside wall, and I can't tell if I'm hearing the water or my own blood roaring in my ears.

Peridot's eyes are rimmed with red, and her body shakes as she clings to the tiled edge. She coughs up chlorine water on the pool deck.

I don't care. I don't care at all.

"What the _fuck_ is your problem?" I roar, loud enough for it to echo off of every damn wall in the school.

An entire class' worth of eyes are on us in a moment, watching in reserved interest as if we're the new exhibit in a zoo.

I feel like we're trapped in a glass cage that only gets smaller and smaller.

My eyes trained on her, I try to stop myself from pulling more attention in our direction. As if the whole fucking gym class isn't already staring at us. The coach looks away and tells his kids to do some relays. They do, and for the first time in their lives, everybody's feet stay under the water so that they can hear me without the excess splashing.

"Well?" I ask again, my voice only lowering slightly in volume. I step closer so that only a few inches separate our bodies.

It's dead silent on the pool deck.

Peridot's eyes flash.

And then she's smashing our lips together, holding the back of my head firmly to keep me from pulling away. My breath is knocked out of me like I got slammed against the ground, and I choke as Peridot fills my lungs. I can't move. I can't even close my eyes. I can't do a damn thing.

Sometimes when I kiss Pearl I can understand what she's feeling- passion, love, sadness. But kissing Peridot is a white hot conglomerate of emotion that rips at my chest, and I'm the _farthest_ I've ever been from understanding her.

To say that the kiss is anything but raw would be a cruel romanticization. It's animalistic and rough, and there is nothing pretty about the way Peridot clings to me like I'm her last lifeline. There's nothing pretty about the way her face corrupts into an expression almost agonized, or the way her blunt fingernails dig into my neck.

It's desperate and hateful, and it sends a quiver down my spine and wrings my heart out like a dishrag.

And in the same instant it started, it ends. Peridot leaves with her teeth on my bottom lip, pulling on it as she rips away. There's a sting, and I feel hot blood trickle down my chin.

Peridot climbs out of the pool and spits my flesh out onto the pool deck, making a show of wiping her lips with her hand. Then, locking our eyes, she raises her middle finger in defiance.

"I fucking hate you, Lapis Lazuli," she says, just loud enough for her voice to echo off the deck walls and project into the ears of every listening student.

Peridot storms off with an agitated growl, swinging open the locker room door and slamming it. The gym coach chases her in hot pursuit, his too-short shorts riding up his blindingly white thighs.

All eyes are on me. I know they are. I can feel them, bearing into my skin. The water locks me in place like ice, seizing my muscles. The glass box shrinks around me, constricting against my skin and crushing my lungs.

I force myself to breathe.

I find the strength to turn around. Upon doing so, the regular class gets back to their exercises. At least they have the decency to pretend not to care. My group isn't so sympathetic. They only stare at me, awaiting command. The senior has a shit eating grin that I'd just love to beat off of her piggish, smug, face.

"Did I tell you to stop?" I holler, my mind going blank for just a moment to allow my mental autopilot to activate. "Go!"

I'm not entirely sure what I just said, but everyone dunks their heads under the surface and starts paddling again, so I'm sure I did something right.

I need to relieve the boiling core in my gut, so I dive back in and swim along with them, propelling myself through the water without thought and hitting the edges of the pool in record time. My strokes send wakes of poisonous chlorine behind me and I hit the senior with a torrent of ice water as I pass.

But no matter how fast I go, or how strong I swim, I can't escape the whispers that infest the pool deck. They're all around me, slamming into my skull and embedding themselves into my skin. And suddenly, I can't tell if I'm swimming to drown the noise, or to drown myself.

I settle on the latter.

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 **Thanks to everyone who favorited, followed, reviewed, or even read this story!**

 **Greggy: Hey man, we cool. Didn't mean to come off as rude. :)**


	6. Peridot Becomes a Registered

**Hi! So I'm back. Since School is coming up, my updates will be slightly more staggered. I'll try to stay on a schedule of 1-2 weeks, but don't be mad if I end up failing miserably.**

 **In other news, after some very valid criticisms of my last chapter, I might go back in and try to make it just a shade less somber. Lapis is a little more difficult to write humor for because her tone is a tad less sarcastic and dry than Peridot's.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Sexual Innuendo, Swearing, Mentions of Violence, Slight Ableist language, Smoking**

* * *

Peridot Becomes a Registered Sex Offender

So I'm suspended. Which is, of course, fabulous. And like it's the fucking cherry on my shitty-day sundae, I have to go through the rest of the day damp and angry (or, depending on your sense of humor, wet and bothered). By lunch, there's not a soul in the school that doesn't know what happened in first period gym class.

'That one weird girl sexually assaulted the swim team captain'- that's unanimously the most popular sentence today.

Sexual assault. That's what I'm being charged with. Apparently I should've laid off on my passionate confession, because all the coach needed to get me a five day vacation was the cut on her lip. God, athletes are so fragile. I have the larvae of a five-fingered bruise growing on my arm, but do you see me begging Mr. My-white-thighs-could-cause-legal-blindness-and-yet-I-still-wear-short-shorts for sympathy? No. You don't.

And if the animosity between Lapis and I shocks you, it shouldn't.

Unsurprisingly, two very stubborn people with the stunted emotional range of a six inch ruler do not cut fights cleanly. And it doesn't help that we are bested only by an online language translator when it comes to poor communication.

Our arguments break skin more often that what is probably socially healthy for best friends. And quite often, we're pretty evenly matched. But I really can't throw a punch when my arms are preoccupied with trying to keep me from drowning, and Lapis really can't control herself when she gets worked up like that.

And maybe this is my fault for knowingly getting her worked up like that. For purposely risking my safety just to get under her skin and make her feel like shit.

I've said it before, and it rings true into infamy- I'm a pretty bad friend.

I know we'll be patched up by the time my bruise fades, but I dread seeing Lapis anytime soon. And the short one-week recovery time I'm being allotted doesn't seem like enough. The idea of looking at her and admitting that maybe I meant the things I said fills me with nausea.

I barter with myself. Maybe if I get into a fight with Pearl during chemistry, I'll buy myself another week to avoid Lapis with. It's not like I have a reputation left to preserve.

Thankfully, I don't deal with her for the rest of the day. I do, however have to deal with my teachers. Since I'm going to be out for awhile and was given this golden opportunity to stay in school for the rest of the afternoon, I ask them for the work I'll need to complete over the week. That way, I'm not too far behind.

When they ask why I'll be out for such an extended period of time, I shrug and lie.

"Vacation," I tell them. They don't pry. A few even tell me that they're glad I get to relax a bit because I've been looking a tad stressed lately.

After washing my face off in the mirror for the nth time today, I have to say, I agree. But hey, on the bright side I think my eye bags are finally being covered up by my _other_ eye bags!

I end up in chem two minutes before the bell rings and Pearl strolls in right after me. I feel like every eye in the room subconsciously takes note of her presence, even if it's just an absentminded flicker towards the doorway. She dominates the room with the essence of a practiced kind of teacher who wears a chopstick bun and cat-eye glasses. Pearl, of course, is younger than fifty and rational enough to lack both of those physical traits, but I can tell that later down the line, her birdlike nose will have a ridge set perfectly for gaudy specs, and her strawberry blonde hair will be grayed at the roots and stabbed in place with an eastern Asian eating utensil.

She leans awkwardly to one side as she half tip-toes, half swaggers in. It's probably because of that dead weight hanging off her shoulder. She's one of those kids who packs their entire locker in their bag because they're afraid of being late. Her hand-woven tote bulges at the seams. One day, that things is going to burst in the middle of the busy hallway, and I am going to laugh so damn hard.

But for now, I'm too preoccupied with worrying that she'll use it to deck me.

Pearl takes a deep breath as she approaches our table and then sits down, pulling out her desired supplies and arranging them in front of her. She has a system. Two pens- red and blue, one mechanical pencil, and one thoroughly abused eraser sit by the top of the black surface, along with her science notebook. To contrast, my desk is occupied by a beat-up journal and a chewed wooden pencil. I smile inwardly. It probably drives Pearl up the wall.

I mentally prepare myself for Pearl's barrage of questions and demands- there's no doubt she's heard about this morning- but it never arrives. Instead, she takes a steady breath and looks me over. I can't tell what she's thinking, and if I were any less exhausted, that would scare me. Pearl's eyes usually betray every emotion under the fucking sun, but right now, they're cold and bleak, like stained metal.

Pearl heaves a quivering breath, adjusting her bangs with elegant fingers and squeezing her eyes shut.

"I heard what happened," she announces like the exasperated mother of a three year old trying to goad him into confessing that it was he who painted the entire wall in non-washable markers.

But I am not a three year old, and her suburban mother's accent does nothing to intimidate me.

"You'd have to be pretty damn deaf not to hear," I snap. Pearl gives me a smoldering look and I shrug. "Oh, was that rude? Sorry. Forgot to put on my _good attitude cap_ today." I make a show of tapping my skull with my index and grit my teeth.

Pearl sighs and ruins the bangs she so elegantly placed by dragging her hands through her hair. "Is she always like that?"

My eyebrows quirk. I was more or less expecting a lecture riddled with passive aggressive threats. She almost sounds like she actually wants to converse. "Like what?"

"Did you or did you not fight?" she asks with impatient rhetoric.

Oh. So that's why she's trying to talk to me evenly. She wants information. But her battle tactics are as transparent as my glasses, so I'm not fooled. In fact, you could almost say that I find her attempts to run an interrogation to be amusing. I look into her befuddled expression and smile like a wolf next to a house built out of hay.

I'm brought with the realization that Pearl has never seen the dark side of Lapis' moon. She never fought with Lapis like I have, because if she did, she'd know without a doubt that Lapis is more or less 'always like that'. And since it's impossible to not piss Lapis off to the point of a clenched fist, I can tell that Lapis is hiding that part of her with the fiery chains from hell.

Suddenly I'm offhandedly proud. And I'm not proud because I antagonized my short-fused best friend to give it to me- I'm proud because Pearl has never had a bruise like mine. A bruise that proves I know more of Lapis than she ever will.

"We fight sometimes," I shrug, trying to hide the sentiment behind that statement.

"I've never seen her like that," Pearl insists. Her cheeks puff up like a pouty two-year old, and I can't stifle my tart giggle.

"Well, the thing is, whether or not you see it doesn't change the fact that it exists." I retort.

Pearl stiffly shakes her head as if I must be making up lies. She's probably trying to convince herself that I lost some oxygen under the water and killed a few brain cells. Probably thinks I'm making this up for attention. She presses her lips together and turns her head to the front of the class. I don't know why- there's nothing interesting up there save for our still hung-over science teacher.

And because it'd be weird if I kept staring at her, I follow her gaze to the front and stare at the man at the front of the class in expectancy.

His face bears a striking resemblance to a blobfish, I decide after close inspection.

The bell makes my ears bleed to signify the end of free hallway passage, and class begins.

I pick up my head and try to focus on a power point about balancing chemical equations. My mind is basically a calculator already so I have no trouble with these things, but the rest of the class, not surprisingly, struggles. It doesn't help that the teacher only ever refers to the power point when some poor kid asks a question.

(I swear, one time a guy in the back asked if he could go to the bathroom, and Mr. Blobfish just took out his laser pointer and highlighted the term, "Absolute Zero".)

The class is uneventful, and before it ends, I have to swallow down a wave of mingling nerves and annoyance to ask the teacher for my homework. He gladly gives it to me, along with a promise to email me the lesson slides, and I leave with my shoes hardly touching the floor.

Pearl is waiting at the door for me with a gentle smile. I don't know what I expect out of her, but it's certainly not this. As soon as I'm within arms reach of her, the air thins.

She greets me as if we're friends (ha!), and then as soon as we walk out of earshot of Mr. Power-points-are-substitutes-for-actually-teaching, she whips around, delivering a hard glare. I blink. I like her eyes. They're rather pretty. Blue, with smoky wisps of hazel and gold.

I decide that I'd like to poke them out with my index and middle finger.

She takes a deep breath, as if contemplating the best way to get across to me. And then she speaks.

"Don't you dare touch my girlfriend like that ever again. Please, and thank you." Her tone is harsh, cold, and betrayed, but I can detect that she at least feels sorry for me.

I've seen Pearl threaten people before, and this is not it. Usually, she sounds like one of those nasally white women demanding to speak to the manager in a department store, probably with two screaming kids at her thighs. But right now, she almost sounds like an actual human being. I have half the nerve to obey her and move on with my life.

But instead, I raise my middle finger and shrug, "she started it."

Pearl releases an indignant squawk and flutters away to get lost within the migration of teenagers exiting the building. I wait a few seconds before following after, because we both take the same route to our lockers and it would be kind of weird if I walked right behind her.

My locker's at the very end of a very out-of-the-way hall, which means I have to sprint to it between periods. I'd be late to half of my classes if I had to actually unlock it every time, so I simply position the lock so that it appears locked from afar. Unfortunately, that makes me suspect to a lot of nasty pranks. When I arrive at the tin box, my lock has been inverted and closed. I heave a long sigh, kneeling down to undo it. My knees rub the dirty tile floor.

I try to hurry, because Lapis' locker is right next to mine, and if I see her again, I'm going to lose it.

I grumble to myself as I toy with my lock, dialing the incorrect combination at least three times with shaky hands before the damn thing opens. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lapis' face peeking from the adjacent hallway. I'm glad she has the courtesy to wait.

I don't even know what I'd say to her if she did decide to approach me.

 _"Hey, almost drowning me earlier today and me totally devouring your face- that was fun, right?"_ is admittedly not the best icebreaker.

The final dismissal bell rings around me, signalling that the buses have left. I chuckle to myself. Looks like Lapis is walking home. Thankfully, I don't share her fate- my parents have to come up to the school and sign some forms acknowledging my suspension before I'm allowed out. And since mom's at work today, I guess I'm dealing with dad.

I grab my shoulder bag, stuffing all my class work inside and slamming my locker so hard that it rattles. I pretend I'm slamming it in Pearl's face. Maybe I also pretend to break that beak-like nose of hers, too.

I refuse to give Lapis the novelty of knowing I see her, so with a swift turn, I'm off in the other direction.

I trot down the halls like I waxed the very marble my shoes are scuffing.

Our school is built like a huge box, with smaller cubicle like sections within it. Every tall, narrow hallway looks about the same, and I navigate my way to the big glass office with only the numbered doors as landmarks to guide me.

I kill my arrogant gait the moment I walk through the door, replacing it with teeth on my lower lip and brows drawn upwards.

My dad's waiting for me, expression unreadable.

My dad is a stick-thin guy just short enough to go through doorways without ducking. Mom says I look a lot like him, with my graphite eyes and gaunt cheekbones, but that's where the similarities end. Unlike my usual scowl, he's got a goofy smile that perpetually sits on his face even when he frowns, and soft gray eyes that can even reflect vibrant light in a dull, sleepy way. He looks like a malnourished sloth.

I amble towards him, forcing a toothy grimace.

"Hi, dad," I mutter.

Dad doesn't say a word. The receptionist at the desk beckons us over and has dad fill out a handful of forms that acknowledge the extent of my wrongdoings.

Basically:

Lady: Did you know your child had actual sex with another female on the pool deck, robbed six banks today, and stole an orphan's candy bar on his birthday?

Dad: (some long-winded remark about how wild he was in his high school days, probably adding that he robbed _seven_ banks and stole an orphan's candy bar on _Christmas.)_

After that, the transaction goes smoothly enough- dad signs my papers, I get scolded by the assistant for leaving my chewed off nails on her desk, and we head out to the car.

"You know I had to leave work for this?" Dad snaps. It's obviously rhetoric, so I don't answer save for a glance down at my shoes as we walk towards my dad's Ford. We get in, and dad starts up the car. A sleazy talk show host fills the silence, and I cringe. Dad smacks my hand away as I try to change the radio. "This is serious, Dot!"

I wince and shove my fingers into my hoodie pockets. Dad is the only person who can call me Dot. Nobody else gets that privilege- not mom, not Lapis, not anyone. Basically, unless you're my dad, call me Dot and you die.

I expect him to put the car in drive, but he doesn't, opting instead to drum his fingers on the steering wheel and sigh. He looks so exhausted- I can almost see why mom thinks we look similar.

Dad sucks on his lower lip, a habit I despise, and releases it with an audible pop.

"What's up with you? You've been acting weird all week, and now this? Is something wrong?" Dad asks after a long silence, furrowing his brow. He tries to lock eyes with me, but I avert them and successfully find a focus on the forty eighth star on our school's flag.

I want to tell him about everything- Lapis, Pearl, Sadie... but I don't think I could physically retell it to him without breaking into tears or puking. I've never been especially comfortable with confiding in people anyways. It always felt like I was grabbing for attention, or in this case, an excuse.

So I just settle for:

"I'm just stressed."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks, crinkling his brow.

"Are you reading all those parenting magazines again?" I ask, ignoring his question. I tangle my fingers together in my hoodie.

Dad cracks a half smile and puts the car in drive, taking us away from school at last. "Maybe. But if you want to talk about it more, you know I'm always on your team." He runs a hand through my hair and ruffles it before taking us home. I bite my tongue, because while I love to ruin a heartfelt moment, I don't quite want to let go of this one.

I manage to hold the fuzzy feeling in my gut for a full five minutes and thirty six seconds. And then I'm sick of listening to the cotton-mouthed radio talk show host, and I change the station to something more respectable, like trashy pop.

By the second verse of the song, _We're Drunk and at a Club and Hooking Up with Random Dudes Who Probably Have STD's_ , the mood has passed.

As soon as we pull into the drive, dad has his hand out in expectancy. "You're grounded by the way," he says factually. "No electronics."

"Dad, I have school projects I need to complete!"

"Okay... You can have the laptop."

I grin.

"Under my supervision, of course."

I want to scowl, but I decide that even a laptop for school is better than none at all. I reluctantly part with my cellphone, promising it that I'll be back. Dad gives me a look, but knows better than to remark upon it.

I decide that I don't want to stay cooped up in my house all night and trap my thoughts under a roof, so I tug on dad's arm as we get out of the truck.

"Yes?" He asks, in that parental tone of piqued interest.

"Am I allowed to walk around?" I ask.

"With all the time you spend in your room, I didn't think you knew how to," Dad jokes, chuckling at his own words. At the roll of my eyes, he waves his hand at me. "Go ahead. Just be home by the time the streetlights come on."

With a relief-laden sigh, I thank him and take off down towards the boardwalk.

Over the past week, I've collected the habit of making daily visits to the Big Donut. I don't buy my breakup box every time of course, but I do get a free water so that I'm not considered loitering.

When I burst through the doors of the Big Donut, I see Sadie's eyes light up. She told me once that she looks forward to seeing me, and I have to say, it's a nice feeling to be anticipated.

Her coworker is manning the register next to her and reading a magazine. We started off on a left foot, but he became thoroughly less horrible after I explained that I was gay, and he started seeing me as a potential friend rather than a date. He's actually pretty funny if you aren't overly sensitive.

"What took you?" Lars asks, folding his magazine and placing it next to him. His smile reminds me of the hyenas in _The Lion King_ \- it's wide and goofy, with just an air of mischievous intent.

"School," I shrug, ordering a water and taking a seat in the booth nearest the counter.

"Hey, are you okay?" Sadie asks, drawing her eyebrows in. To contrast with Lars, her smile is as candid as a photograph, and it's full of concern.

"I've been better," I shrug.

"Dude, what's wrong with you?" Lars asks, and for a moment he sounds too much like Lapis. I cringe and take a sip of my water.

I can deftly make out the noise of Sadie smacking Lars on the arm and a muffled "ow! Sorry!"

Sadie retreats from the counter and sits next to me, offering her hand. I don't take it today, because even thinking about touching someone makes me sick.

"Peridot?" Sadie asks, pulling her hand to her side after realizing I'm not interested in it.

"I kissed her," I confess, the words tumbling from my mouth like loose rocks on the side of a mountain. Sadie's eyes shoot open.

"No way," she whispers, lost for breath. "How'd it go?"

For a split second, I see her eyes flicker back behind the counter, but I don't pay mind. I'm too busy feeling like I'm drowning in the pool again, dragged through the water by a phantom hand.

Sadie drags me out and gives me air with a nudge.

"I get it," she mumbles. But she doesn't get it. She doesn't get how absolutely screwed over I am. She can never understand how, absolutely, 100%, irrevocably _fucked_ my life is right now. And I'm not in any place to blame her, because _I_ don't even fully comprehend the extend of my own unadulterated fuckery.

Maybe if I fought back, this wouldn't be so bad. I think that if I clocked her in the face, we'd be on more progressive terms. Because the memory of a bruise fades with the blemish. But the memory of a first kiss? Well that's the sort of thing that sticks with you like the gum on the underside of a classroom desk.

And I don't know how friends go back to being friends with a thought like that glued to the back of our minds.

Sighing, I decide that if that's the one kiss I get with Lapis, then I'm not regretful. I can't change what happened, and I don't think I would know what to do with myself if I could.

"Stop having a pity party over there. It's pretty freakin' sad," Lars sneers.

I crack a grin, because I know that he's really saying, _"Hey, don't be sad. I don't like seeing you this way."_

Lars is one of those people who talks through a reverse filter, in which he puts all the good stuff in and only lets all the bad stuff out. It's a very interesting phenomenon, because he's not even doing it consciously in order to seem detached or cool. He just dons a natural air of meanness like a participation medal on an underachieving child's trophy shelf.

"I am being stifled," I announce, looking him in the eye. "My emotions are invalidated now. Look at what you've done."

"Eh," Lars spits out his tongue.

We share a relaxed snicker and trail off into comfortable silence.

"Seriously though. You alright?" Sadie asks.

"Peachy." I say, bitterness edging my tone.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll get over it."

And maybe I will, because the gross colony of congestion in my chest is almost starting to clear up. It'll come back with isolation, but for now, I'm alright. Hanging out with people I dare to call my friends- I think I'm going to be just fine.

"Stop being useless over there and buy some donuts already, man," Lars snaps, and I know that he thinks I'll be alright, too.

Sadie leads me up and guides me to the counter.

"Compensate me for my troubles," I demand, slapping five-dollars short worth of bills on the counter.

"What troubles?" Lars raises an eyebrow.

"Dealing with you, for starters" I shoot back, faux venom in my words.

"Fair."

Sadie fishes the donuts out of the glass container as Lars takes some cash out from his pocket and makes a show of kissing it and using it to wipe invisible tears before throwing it in the register.

"I hope you get pink eye," I tell him.

"Don't be stupid. My money would never betray me like that." He says. I laugh without having to manage it, and it feels weird when my smile appears on its own.

I almost forgot how nice it felt to be so relaxed around people. To banter back and forth and forget the conversation hours later, only left with the remnants of the good feeling it left you with. It's weird. Not weird as in a childless grown man hanging out around an elementary school playground during recess hour- no, it's a nice weird. Like an unexpected drop on a roller coaster, or finding five bucks in your jean pocket when you could've sworn you didn't put it there earlier.

By time I'm fondly over the blatant _weirdness_ of this new situation, I see the sun dip below the beach and the streetlights flicker on.

"I've gotta go," I declare, throwing away the empty donut box and helping Sadie wipe off the counter.

"Aw. Does daddy want his little girl back?" Lars sneers, refusing to help us close up and throwing a jacket around his shoulders.

"Why yes," I reply, "I would love a ride home."

Lars huffs and shakes his head, getting his keys and beckoning me to the back door. "Come on, asshole." He says.

Lars' car is a beat up garbage can on wheels. I can't really complain because mine is no better, but I do notice an incredibly pungent smell seeping from the cushions. Sadie notices it too, and I think she motions for me not to bring it up, but I don't realize she's telling me to keep my mouth shut until it's already open.

"Damn, you smoke?"

Lars cringes, nodding stiffly. "Leisurely."

I want to tell him that the reek of nicotine in this car is nothing but regular, but I finally catch Sadie's cue and brush it off.

Smoke is a scent that has been ingrained into my brain since I was a toddler. My dad used to be as 'leisure' as I assume Lars is, and I often woke to the smell of nicotine and coffee. The walls of our house were stained yellow with sulfur, and it soaked into the furniture like water to a sponge. He stopped after I started showing signs of secondhand lung problems, but sometimes I can still smell a fresh cotton bonfire in the garage and I know he's had a rough day at work.

I wonder absentmindedly what dragged Lars to smoke, because it seems like there's always a good story behind these kinds of things. Maybe he got peer pressured. Maybe he did it to piss of the DARE officers that had assemblies at our school and just never stopped.

Dad smokes out of stress, so I think it would make sense for Lars to smoke out of rebellion and spite.

I lead Lars to my house like a GPS. He botches my instructions at every intersection, and I end up recalculating the route twice before Sadie grabs hold of the wheel and turns it for him. It's probably dangerous for us to pilot the junker like this, but it'd probably be more dangerous to let Lars drive on his own.

As we pull in, I thank Lars and give Sadie an awkward hug, our elbows bumping the car seats.

"See you tomorrow, Peridot!" Sadie calls as I head inside. I assure her that I will, and slam the door behind me.

Dad's lounging on the couch watching some sport or another. He hardly looks up as I trudge through the living room and into the kitchen.

"Your dinner's in the microwave," he informs me as if he can see my hand reaching for the cup noodles.

I check out my dinner plate. Macaroni and fried chicken. Classic.

I set the timer to one minute and wait, fingers tapping the counter rhythmically. I paw at my pocket for my cell, but my hands are only met with empty space.

The microwaves finally dings, offering me my food. I take it without thanks, heading back to my room and easing my door shut. I plop down on my bed, surprised to see that Dad was committed to his punishment enough to unhook my television. I gingerly test my nightstand lamp to make sure he didn't mean light fixtures as well when he said 'no electronics'. Thankfully, it flickers on, and my room is illuminated by a warm glow.

With a reheated dinner sitting in my lap, and no instant entertainment, I dig out a novel from my shelf that I haven't read in years. I'm usually dependent on my tablet for reading, but in cases like these, treekillers work too. It takes a moment to get used to the lack of a backlit screen, but after a moment of shifting, I manage to angle myself so that the light hits the page evenly.

After a few minutes of trying to immerse myself in the book and coming up shorter than a low budget film remake, I slam the novel shut and toss it to my side. The words seem to slip from the page and dance away from my vision, begging not to be read. I can't focus well enough to care, or even to want to care. My thoughts drift to other things.

I let myself zone out, and my mind has once again found Lapis, as if it were never astray from her in the first place.

And that's okay, because while the physical Lapis makes me want to rip my hair out right now, the mental thought of her is almost pleasant.

I spend the next ten minutes imagining a scenario where everything goes right. Where Lapis kisses back and Pearl goes back to her birdhouse and cries or whatever. Where 'best friends' is just a gateway to better things, and where a kiss is only a kiss.

In my fantasy, Lapis pulls back gently after our lips meet and cups my cheek with those huge warm hands of hers. The pads of her fingertips, hard and callused, scratch my skin. She searches my face with her fishlike eyes and crinkles her brow.

"Peri," she says, "what are you-?"

And I cut her off, just barely managing a smile behind the nerves and euphoria that she actually kissed back. "I like you, you idiot," I grumble, running a hand through her sleek wet hair and remarking how wonderfully blue it looks when it's wet.

"Shit, what about Pearl?"

"Break up with her," I demand.

Lapis kisses the top of my forehead. "Okay. For you."

And then Pearl flies to her house and migrates south for the winter or something.

I chuckle to myself about that last bit.

I eat mindlessly until my fork is scraping ceramic. When I'm finished, I toss my plate on my dresser to ferment, and lay back on my bed.

My life has gotten excessively complicated in the last two weeks, and I'm still slowly adjusting to the aftershocks. And I need Lapis right now, but at the same time, I never want to see her again, and basically everything kind of sucks.

My eyes catch a lump of fabric in the middle of my floor. It's a dark blue, and I can just make out the white lettering on the back. My breath catches slightly. Lapis' jacket. I never gave it back in my attempts to avoid her.

And now I'm thinking about grabbing it, because I know it smells like her. But I'm not that desperate. I'm _not._ I'm mad at Lapis. I don't want her.

And yet, ten minutes later I'm gravely disappointed as I come to learn that my incense smoke has all but overpowered the thick chemical smell in the coat, leaving only a ghost of the original scent. And as I bury my face into the fabric and hold down the quivering sobs that have been building up since the morning, I decide that I'm glad there's so little of her left. Because any more than a trace of Lapis Lazuli would absolutely destroy me.

And I would prefer to not be destroyed, thank you.

I don't cry. Not in the safety of my room, not in the privacy of a shower.

But maybe in the faint smell of chlorine, I will.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who left a comment, favorite, follow, or review! It means the world.**


	7. Lapis Sucks at Aftercare

**Hey! I told you the update periods would be getting a little longer, so I hope you still have faith in me haha. Anyways, this chapter, like a few others, started off with about 1,000 words and exploded in word count during revision. And like many other chapters, I didn't intend for this one to exist. I just need a buffer between this chapter and the next. And I learned that it is _really_ hard to write humor without dry sarcasm. **

**Also, as if this chapter the story will be rated 'M'. Nothing especially raunchy or explicit happens, but as far as kids go, they probably shouldn't be exposed to this stuff yet. _(For reference, it gets about as raunchy as 'Perks of a Wallflower' does.)_**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Swearing, Blood, Non-Explicit depictions of sex, non-explicit depictions of disassociation, Nudity**

* * *

Lapis Sucks at Aftercare

Look, I didn't mean for her to get suspended. Really.

The gym coach pulls me from the water with his gross vein-y hands and inspects my face as if he's looking for zits (for the record, I have none). His eyes befall my lower lip and he grimaces.

"Legal action should be taken," he declares, scowling. "I'm calling your parents."

"N-no! No! No legal action, please!" My eyes shoot open and I feel my chest freeze. "If... If you take legal action, I'll quit the swim team!" I add with a splutter.

In all honesty, it's a pretty hollow threat. There are no doubt other swimmers dying to take my place as captain if I leave the position open, and the exclusion of the swim team would probably hurt me more than him in the long run. But he bites the worm like a walleyed fish anyways, and assures me that he'll try to work something out privately.

"Thank you," I squeak.

"I'll see what I can do," he mutters with a noncommittal grunt. "In any case, you should probably take the rest of the period off. Go dry up."

"Is Peridot in the lockers?" I ask. I can't tell if the caution in my voice is instead anticipation, and for some reason, that jars me.

"No, she's in my office. Don't worry, you're safe," he rests a hand on my shoulder for support, his hard glare falling for just a moment before steeling once more. "If you're really that nervous about it, you can take my whistle in case something comes up." He tugs off the plastic thing and hands it to me.

Although the plastic is chewed and has his nasty spit on it, I can tell he's just trying to be helpful, so I accept it after a brief moment of reluctance. With a thanks, I retreat into the locker rooms.

It's very surreal without anyone else inside of it. The narrow walls and dirty floors are as quiet as an abandoned operating table, lying in wait for the next time it will dissect the loose clothes from a girl. I decide that I don't like it, and hurry to affix my shorts upon my hips and my jersey upon my back.

And because the silence is eerie, I let my mind wander. I try to recall what exactly happened between my anger and the kiss, but it's like a fleeting dream. All I can remember is _redness_ , and _hotness_. Maybe they existed separately, or maybe they existed in unison, but I don't think it matters as long as I know that they were both definitely there.

And I think, in all my haze, that's one of the only things I _do_ know.

Apart from the red and the hot (or the hot and red- the order isn't really of vital importance), I can discern three things at least;

1.) I didn't hurt Peridot badly. If I did, she'd be in the school infirmary, not in the gym coach's office.

2.) The kiss, while it might've seemed like a thousand years, probably only equated to a second or two.

And 3.) If anyone acted irrationally or out of impulse to the given situation, it's Peridot.

And it's these three things that keep me loftily above the acceptance of my own responsibility for the rest of the hour.

"Oh my goodness, Lapis!" My ears perk up at the familiar voice. Pearl scuttles across the lunchroom, hands gripping her tray with anxious fervor. I think they're shaking. She smacks it down at the table and shoves it aside, grabbing my chin in a swiftly gentle motion and tilting it up for her to get a better angle of my lip. I subconsciously lean into the warmth of her hand, too exhausted to pull away or make up some defensive bullshit.

"Hi, Pearl." I mumble. "How's your day been going?"

"What on earth happened?!" She runs her thumb over the nick, and I wince.

"I don't want to talk about it," I grumble, nudging her hand away. Pearl purses her lips together and offers me some of her lunch in a last-ditch attempt to console me.

I don't know why I never have a lunch- it's not like I'm living impoverished in my clean, two story house. I just don't like putting effort into sustaining my life. Plus, it's not like I need the extra beef anyways. Pearl's never hungry, so she always lets me mooch off of her tray, a gesture I'm fond of, even in its uselessness.

But today, I'm too exhausted and nauseous to eat. I push her tray in front of her and lay on my arms, staring listlessly at the stitches in my jacket.

"Lapis..."

"I _said_ I didn't wanna talk about it," I growl, firmer this time. "Eat your food already." My hands stiffen under the shield of my jacket, and I force myself to relax them. I already lost my cool once today- I don't want to lose it again. Especially not in front of my girlfriend.

"I love you," Pearl whispers.

"Yeah, okay."

Right now, I really don't want to hear an "I love you". It's too heavy- it weighs on my body like an iron chest plate, over-protecting me from a danger that doesn't exist. I wish she would just tell me to suck it up and stop moping around, but that's more of a Peridot thing in all honesty.

The dismissal bell rings, and I go on with my day. The kids in the lunch room flood through the halls in a mad rush to get their things before the tardy bell rings.

Suddenly, an idea formulates in my head. I make an estimate of how long it would take me to run to Peridot's locker, and after I'm sure I won't be late to study hall, I go for it.

* * *

I stare at my best friend as she fumbles with her lock. My legs want to move, but I'm reluctant to confront her. I don't want to make things worse. It's been two weeks since we started this little game, and it seems like the more I try to work things out, the more impossibly complicated they become. It feels like I'm pulling apart headphones that went through a dryer cycle in my pocket.

You sabotaged her locker for a reason, I scold myself. Talk to her!

Maybe it's the fresh taste of liquid copper in my mouth or the twist in my gut, but I just cannot bring myself to step forward. Instead, I leer at her like a creep, eyes consuming her disgruntled face as she twists the combination once more.

Left, right, left.

Finally, she opens it and my chance has been severed. She grabs a surplus amount of supplies and jams them into her faded Harry Potter _'I'm a Slytherin and Proud!'_ bag. I almost think she catches me staring, but the feeling ebbs.

The final dismissal bell echoes around the building and I curse. Looks like I'm walking home then. It's alright- I probably need the mindless exercise to help me clear my head anyways.

Peridot slams the locker door hard enough to make me jump. She spins on one heel, almost gracefully, and storms away, her shoes squeaking against the tiled floors. Sighing, I wait until the sound of her steps diminish to nothing before emerging from the shadows.

Okay, so it was less _emerging_ and more _half-tripping over my own shoes_ , but emerging sounds cooler so I'm sticking with that.

I head to my locker, opening it with ease and grabbing my bag. My phone buzzes.

 **Pearl:** Hey, Lapis! My debate team meeting was canceled. Would you like to hang out?

I feel a tug in my gut. I really don't want to hang out with _anybody,_ least of all Pearl.

I don't know if I can look into those eyes and tell her that Peridot kissed me. Even worse, I don't know if I can confess that I kind of, maybe, somewhat _liked it._

And suddenly, an amendment is added to the original list of things I could discern about the kiss.

1\. Peridot's not hurt.

2\. The kiss was short.

3\. The fault lies with Peridot, not me.

4\. _I liked it._

God damn it, I _liked_ it.

I wait before replying, staring at my phone screen and wishing that it could decide for me. With impulsive thumbs, I text back an affirmative.

 **Me:** yeah no prob. can u pick me up tho? i missed my bus.

Pearl answers enthusiastically, and we decide to meet in the lunch room.

I trot to the cafeteria, avoiding the eyes of the janitors as I take a seat on top of one of the tables. One of them, a bald guy with sagging eyes and a grimace deeper than a Robert Frost poem, offers me a napkin. I hold the piece of glorified paper in confusion before he gestures to my dirty shoes.

"S-sorry," I stammer, jamming the paper towel underneath my feet. He smiles and wordlessly returns to his job.

"Nasty cut," he mentions.

"I realize," I snap back, stuffing my fists into my jacket pockets.

Shit- just when I was starting to forget about it, too.

Pearl strides in, bag upon her shoulder and a concerned scowl upon her face. I force the pit in my stomach to fade and manage a broad smile lathered with falsely confidence.

"Hi, babe," I greet, drawing her in for a hug. She reminds me of the whiskey dad used to slip me during dinner parties with his friends- warm and numbing. I let my eyes slip shut and hang on to her for a long time. Or maybe it just _seems_ like a long time. I don't know, really.

Time works differently when you're with somebody you love, so maybe it doesn't really matter anyways.

"Hey," The janitor scolds gruffly, "No PDA."

Pearl yelps an apology and pulls away, giving me a chaste kiss. She bites down on her lower lip and chews on a breath mint as she formulates her words.

"I heard what happened in Study Hall," Pearl tells me. "Are you okay?"

I want to grimace, but that would require me to strain the skin on my lip, and that would hurt. Instead, I dig my tongue into the copper-tasting slit and shrug.

"Not bad," I lie. "I see that you didn't beat her up during science, huh?"

Pearl snickers, almost in an impish way, and gives me a meek grin. "Would you have liked me to?"

I don't really think I would get a rise out of Peridot getting the shit beat out of her by my girlfriend, but for comedic purposes, I nod. "It would've been kinda funny."

Pearl smacks me playfully and leads me out of the building. She doesn't have enough to get herself a car, so she always rides her bike to school.

It's bright yellow, and made to look vintage with big metal wheel covers and a fat seat more befitting of a swivel chair than a bicycle. Pearl told me a while back that she built it from scratch, stealing parts from the tree lawns on garbage day.

"Do you want to hang out at my house?" Pearl offers.

There's not much waiting for me at home (there really never is), so I agree. "Sure."

"Can I ride the pegs?" I ask curiously, because my backpack only feels like it's getting heavier with every step.

Pearl breaks into a smile and nods, getting on, swinging her huge tote between her legs in order for me to board from the back. I quickly balance myself and nudge my backpack between my shoulder blades.

"You on?" She asks.

"Mmhm," I grab her shoulders tightly. They're completely covered by my large hands, an occurrence I'm fond of.

Pearl kicks off, biking down the parking lot and on to the sidewalk, paying no regard to the added weight.

We bike in silence for a while, Pearl swooping down corners at speeds that make me slam my eyes shut. We don't crash, but we slip at a particularly narrow veer left.

"Shit!" I yell, nearly thrown off the steel frame. My pegs wobble. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Can't hear you!" Pearl laughs, making another sharp turn just to spite me. I quiver as my body lurches precariously close to the pavement. My shoes almost fly from their narrow metal footholds, and I'm forced to press my entire body to Pearl's to keep from falling.

"So," Pearl yells over the wind, completely unaware of my discomfort, "did you have any idea about Peridot?"

"W-what?"

"About her feelings for you!" Pearl clarifies. My eyes widen.

Although it's indisputable that she _feels_ for me, Peridot _having_ feelings for me might be a step too far.

And I know what she feels, because I feel it too. It's the perfect mixture of animosity and kinship that only best friends share. She feels for me in the way that an alcoholic feels for his next drink. I'm something she needs and loves being with, and maybe I make her feel better in the midst of a night where everything else sucks, but ultimately, she has no affection for me. There's absolutely, positively _nothing_ between us.

Of that, I'm sure.

"What? No. She doesn't have feelings for me," I assert. We turn into the boardwalk and start down the beach drive where Pearl lives. "She just has something to prove, that's all."

"Right," Pearl quirks a brow. She doesn't sound convinced. "Lapis, she kissed you until you _bled."_

"I know that!" I insist. "Peridot's a fucking weirdo. She _always_ has an ulterior motive, you know? One of the seniors remarked that we were like girlfriends, so like, maybe she just wanted to stick it to me?"

Pearl groans, drifting into the driveway and coming to an abrupt halt right before the stairs of her beach house. I hop off the bike, thoroughly jilted. I swear to myself silently that I will never ride Pearl's bike again. Not even if I have to walk three miles in the pouring rain.

"You're being paranoid," she remarks, stuffing the bicycle in the homemade rack made of reinforced PVC pipes besides her house. She chains it up without thought, settling it to rest on the kickstand. She takes my hand in hers and leads me up the stairs of the wooden deck.

I've always loved Pearl's house. It's a little shack secluded from the rest of the city overlooking a private section of the beach. Usually, it's full with Pearl's ragtag family- two sisters of varying age and a little boy, but right now, it's silent.

"Garnet's probably taken Amethyst and Steven to Amethyst's basketball game," Pearl explains. She shrugs, tiptoeing inside despite there being nobody to bother with her presence.

Amethyst is Pearl's un-biological younger sister, and Garnet is her older. They're an unlikely trio of kids, drawn together by a late foster mom and the foster mom's son, who lives with them. I can't help but feel a little spoiled every time I step into their world. Being the only members of their household eligible to hold jobs, both Pearl and Garnet work steady shifts to keep their home together, and as Pearl remarked once, sometimes even Amethyst has to walk some dogs to keep the lights on.

It's startlingly different from my privileged household, where everything can be fixed with a visa card and a clean living room.

It looks like a family lives here, too. It's clean, thanks to Pearl, but it still looks touched in a way. Steven's toys are lain out in oddly fitting locations- on shelves, windowsills, and under the couch. I feel like they're all sharpshooters, aiming their toy guns at me and waiting for the moment I look away. I pick up an action figure from the floor and settle it on the kitchen counter.

Pearl offers me a drink. I accept, even though I know she's making tea and I despise tea. It makes Pearl happy when I drink it with her, and sometimes she even has a flavor I like.

"We have peach; you'll like that, right?" Pearl asks, tilting her head like a puppy hearing the word "walk".

"Only one way to find out," I hum.

Pearl settles our mugs in the microwave and leans back as it whirs. She looks thoughtful, like something's been plaguing her mind.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

Pearl shakes her head, but after a second prompting she opens up. "You don't like her, right, Lapis?"

"Of course I like her- she's my best friend," I say idly, worrying that Pearl can sense my avoidance as the words shake from my mouth. My brows furrow.

"Let me clarify- you don't like her romantically, do you?" Insecurity wells up in her eyes, and guilt plagues me like a weighted vest plagues a sprinter.

"No," I manage, my voice a mixture of disbelief and defensive hurt. It has the slightest undertone of doubt too, but I ignore that. "Never." I'm more firm this time because Pearl still doesn't look like she believes me. "Look, she's my _best friend_. I spent the night with her after we went to an all-you-can-eat Mexican restaurant," I chuckle a little, "I don't think I can look past that, to be honest."

"Okay," Pearl relents with a snort.

"The grunting, Pearl. The _grunting_. I still have nightmares," I mock a shiver, and when she smiles, I sort of feel like everything's okay for just a moment.

"And you were totally unaffected and flawless, right?" Pearl snickers.

"Absolutely. What else would you expect?" That's a total lie, by the way. I was even more incapacitated than Peri that night, but spending a total of two hours in the bathroom because you just had to lose your head at _Luchita's Authentic Mexican Diner_ is probably not a very sexy thing for your girlfriend to admit to.

Suddenly, Pearl leans forwards and takes me in a deep kiss, I jolt when instead of her smooth skin, I feel chapped lips. _Peridot's_ lips. I rip back, muscles bunching together with tension. I feel like she does this too often. I feel like _I_ do this too often.

"Again?" Pearl asks, slightly hurt.

"It freaks me out," I confess, my arms curling in on themselves. "'sides, my lip still hurts." It's not a lie- the cut still stings, although admittedly, the pain is waning quickly.

"I understand," Pearl sighs. There's a sharp glint in her eye before she adds, "Although I can't help but notice how quiet the house is for once." A look comes upon her face as if she knows something I don't.

"O-oh?" I ask, wary.

"Amethyst's scheduled for a double-header tonight. Her basketball games go for another two hours... So we'll be alone." Pearl smirks. She runs her fingertips down my arm and chews on her lower lip.

There's this drop in my gut and I get a feeling similar to the flash of panic one receives after realizing that their keys are missing. I stare at Pearl for a long time, eyes drifting down her body and back up again, my feeling of awkwardness amplifying with each passing moment.

Salty ocean waves roll upon the beach and I want nothing more than to get lost in them. The open windows of the beach house mock me.

"Really?" I think my voice is choking up.

"Mmhm," Pearl hums, drifting around the counter to cup my chin.

"R-right. Um," I'm too awkward. Shit.

In an act of impulse, I grab Pearl's hand and squeeze it, tugging her away from the counter and down the hall. I'm too distracted by my own thoughts to remember where Pearl's room is, so I turn into a random door and hope for the best.

"Lapis, this is the closet," Pearl giggles.

"Oh! Right, totally knew that. I just thought we were gonna be kinky sons of bitches today," my laugh trembles. "How about you lead us?"

"Gladly," Pearl smirks, letting go of my hand and dancing to the room at the far end of the hall. Her feet glide against the ground in sweeping, circular motions, guiding my eyes to her long legs and further still. I follow like I'm drunk, taking wobbly, slow steps to follow after her.

Pearl's room is impeccable as I would've figured it would be. Books are tucked away neatly, the bed is made (probably not for long at this rate), and her desk is organized. Posters of famous intellectual leaders are tacked up on the walls around me. I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable with the huge image of Albert Einstein's face ogling at us while we mack it out.

I toy with the hem of my shirt, unsure if I should peel it off or keep it on. Unsurprisingly, the collection of porn I've watched didn't really touch on what I'm supposed to do before the hardcore stuff happens. And if it did, I skipped past it because come on, who wants to spend five minutes watching the sexual _buildup_ instead of five minutes watching the _actual_ sex?

Pearl decides for me, leading me in for a kiss. She does it slowly, ever so slowly, so that I don't panic again. I stiffen up, and then immediately mentally curse myself for acting like such a fucking wuss. I wrap my arms around her lower back, pulling her closer. My grip is weak, and tremors take my hands. It's not in my nature to be so reluctant, but for some reason I just want to put this off for as long as possible.

Pearl pulls back, her hot breath against my face. "You're really special, you know that?"

"Uh..."

"Guess I'll have to show you," Pearl says, mockingly exasperated. She sighs dramatically before attaching her lips to my jawline and moving down the road of goosebumps forming on my neck. She bites down and I suck in a sharp breath.

"Pearl, I-" my voice cracks.

"Hm?"

I want to tell her that I don't like this, but the look of insecurity she had back in the kitchen flashes in my mind and I stop myself before I can voice my discomfort. She already feels like I don't want her- if I stopped now, I would only validate those fears. I can't do that. I won't let myself hurt her like that.

"Shit. Lost my train of thought. I was about to say something _super sexy,_ too," I say with a hasty laugh.

Pearl looks like she's about to reply, but I stop her, clicking our teeth together roughly as I bring her into a kiss. She lets out a gasp and digs her fingernails into my coat, whining. It'd be a very nice sound, I decide, would it not lead to the actions to come.

Get it? _Come._

Her hands go up my shirt and start to slip the cotton from my body. I shrink in upon myself as I'm revealed, arms interlocking over my chest. I wonder if Pearl thinks I'm ugly.

"You're so gorgeous," She whispers, coaxing my arms away.

I wonder idly if she's telling the truth.

Pearl's nimble fingers navigate to my bra strap, hovering over the clasp. With a quick flick and twist, I'm bare. I feel my chest seize and fight the urge to cross my arms again.

Look, I've never covered myself before, but I figure that if there's any 'right' time to start being shy about myself, doing the dirty deed with my girlfriend would definitely qualify.

I don't say a word as she finishes undressing me, opting instead to jam my nose into the crook of her neck and focus only on the color of her wallpaper. It's pink.

We're awkward at first, because as _Super-Ultra-Virgins_ , neither of us are quite sure what goes in where or on what.

"Um. Porn is a lot different than this," I muse, staring at her. Pearl huffs and nods.

"Duly noted. How about we just play it by ear?" She suggests.

Playing it by ear isn't as easy as one might think, and the act is uncomfortable at first, almost painful. But then we slowly start to get a grip.

Hands get more confident as they go up shirts and down pants, thighs shake, lower lips get abused by teeth, and embarrassing noises catch in throats. We set up a rhythm fairly quickly, and if I let myself focus only on the pure sensation of it all, it almost feels _good._

But then it's all over, and I'm lying on disgusting sweat-soaked sheets, gritting my teeth.

The coiling in my gut returns with a vengeance and I start to feel like I'm going to puke. There's no afterglow for me. There's nothing to hang on to except for the cold void in the pit of my stomach and the hitch in my breath as I force it to regulate. Pearl rolls over, swinging a slick arm over my chest. Don't touch me, I think, it's too much.

"G-good?" I ask, despite the nausea.

"Wonderful," Pearl replies, letting her eyes flutter shut. "You?"

"... yeah."

It's quiet for a solid minute as I try to sort out my thoughts. But they're jumbled up like a word search inside my head, and I find that I can't focus on any one thing for longer than a moment.

"The tea's probably cold," I infer suddenly.

"It's fine," Pearl says, stretching. "I'll dump it."

"No, no!" I say quickly. "Don't worry about it. I'll do it. You look spent."

Pearl hesitates for a moment before relenting to my offer with a yawn. "Okay. Don't be long."

She withdraws her arm to let me out and tucks it into her chest, eyelids fluttering shut. She sleeps in a way that makes her look impossibly smalll, fallen in upon herself and limbs drawn together for need of warmth and conservation. Her breathing is steady and shallow.

I tuck her in and slip on my shorts and a shirt, abandoning my bra as I stumble away. I hurry to the kitchen, using the wall to support myself as I walk. My hands sloppily grab the mugs, spilling some tea on my arms.

"Shit," I curse, dumping them into the sink and rinsing them off with water.

I use some napkins to wipe the cold liquid off my arms, and suddenly I'm struck with a horribly tempting idea. My eyes dart to the room and then back to the napkins in my hand. Decidedly, I grab a pen.

 _Something came up, gotta go. Love you. -Lapis_

It's downright shameful walking out like this, but if I stay in this house any longer, I'm going to retch. I almost whisper an "I love you", but that'd make me a hypocrite.

I grab my bag, easing out the door and shuffling to the boardwalk. Eyes follow me as I walk, and some even drift to my chest before ripping away in embarrassment. Peri's right. My tits are perky.

My hair is disheveled roughly, and my clothes sit crooked on my body. If I'm honest, I'll admit that I probably look like a homeless drug dealer right now.

So this is the dreaded walk of shame. Well, at least it's pretty evident to everyone that I got some.

Finally, I come to the doorstep of my house. I kick open the door, arranging my shoes by the wall neatly and sighing.

"I'm home!" I announce.

There's no reply. I'm not surprised- there hardly ever is.

I can't remember where my parents are this time, but I figure they're on some business trip somewhere. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter to me, because all I know is that they're away.

I know I should eat since I haven't eaten all day, but I feel too disgusting to eat, so I decide to take a shower first.

I climb the stairs and head into the bathroom, tearing my clothes off and throwing them away from me. I cringe as my bare feet freeze on the porcelain shower floor, and turn the knob quickly to relieve my frigid body. The hot water on my back makes me hiss, but the sting is appreciated.

I wash myself off, scrubbing hard enough to make my skin red and raw. I feel so gross right now- rinsing off body fluids that might not be mine and remembering how they got there in vivid detail. I bite my lip harshly.

What the hell is _wrong_ with me?

Shouldn't teenagers my age _like_ this kind of stuff? I just had sex, like actual 'jam your fingers up here and lick there' sex. My stomach shouldn't be roiling like I just ate a bad meal. Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe I just wasn't ready.

I feel tears prick my eyes. Fluke or not, I can't take it back now. What happened, happened, and my first time feels almost like it was taken from me and stomped on. The water eventually starts running cold, but I can't bring my body to move. I stare at the wall like a disinterested student stares at the blackboard.

I don't let myself cry, because I'm too exhausted to manage a sob, so I just stand there until the feeling passes. It does, after an hour or so, and I get out.

I inspect myself in the mirror, counting the hickeys and bite marks dotting my collar and shoulders. There are a total of six bruises, all ranging in size and shade, but thankfully, Pearl had the discretion to hide them below the collar of a cotton shirt, so I should be able to conceal them without too much difficulty.

But that isn't what's worrying me.

I'm like 90% sure losing your virginity is not supposed to feel like this; unless all those teenage coming-of-age stories lied to me (and if that's the case, _American Pie_ and _Superbad_ are totally leaving my movie shelf forever). I should feel elated and giddy, with a wide smile that passes to the next day. Instead, I'm left with a hollow feeling of revulsion and guilt.

I've come to the point where it doesn't feel like I lost it at all- more so, it feels like I never even had something to lose in the first place, and I'm just starting to realize the absence of that nothingness in my chest.

I tiptoe to my room and dress myself in a loose shirt and basketball shorts, inexplicably drowsy. I flop down on my bed and close my eyes, deciding that a nap would probably help me re-calibrate. Maybe I'll even feel better afterwards. Without getting under the covers, I curl up into a ball and try to imagine that it's just another Monday afternoon.

It almost works.

* * *

 **Ace/Romantic Lapis, yo.**

 **Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, or favorited! It means a lot!**


	8. Lapis in a Black Hole

**I'm back! Jesus, this chapter is so long. As usual, it started off pretty small, but during revisions, I added some 2,000 words. Consider everything before this a bit of a very long prologue, because this is where the story _really_ begins to pick up. So much shippy stuff to come, just wait. **

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: Cheating, Explicit language, mentions of sex and minor violence, slight nudity**

* * *

Lapis in a Black Hole

I'm a normal teenager.

I like sex, I like my girlfriend, and I like monogamy.

And that's why I've been eating lunch in the bathrooms for the past three days to avoid Pearl.

I've been staking it out in the only bathroom that actually locks- a gender neutral single toilet stall that was built after the school's GSA (fancy acronym for 'Gay Club') fought tooth and nail to have the old custodian's restroom refurbished.

It's quiet and isolated, and while I do occasionally have to wade through the guilt of a poor kid desperately banging on the heavy wooden door, it's a pretty decent sanctuary. And eating lunch right next to a toilet isn't nearly as revolting as one might suspect.

My phone buzzes in my lap and I stare down at the luminescent screen. Pearl's name flashes in bold letters and I roll my eyes. She's been texting and calling me nonstop since I pulled my little stunt on Monday, and while it's nice to know that she cares, it's absolutely driving me up the wall.

Against my good judgment (okay, so maybe my judgment isn't exactly that good in the first place, but still) I check the text she left me.

 **Pearl:** _Lapis, I'm sorry for whatever it is I did. Please call me._

I groan as I read it and toss the phone away from me. "Fuck you," I whine without a venomous note in my cracking voice.

The phone doesn't care about my obscenities (in all fairness, it probably wouldn't care even if it did contain the capability to foster human emotion) and buzzes again. After a short internal argument, I reach for my cell and read her text.

 **Pearl:** _[attached: a picture of a clipart teddy bear hugging a heart with sparkling text reading 'I wuv u']_

A smile peeks from the corners of my lips and I hover over the call button. My finger is magnetized to the green button like a child is magnetized to that one thing you told them they are never, in any circumstances, _not-even-if-the-house-is-on-fire-and-we're-dying_ , allowed to touch.

I press the phone to my ear, heart pounding. One ring. Two rings. Three. Just when I'm afraid (or relieved) that she won't pick up, I hear a click.

"Lapis, oh my goodness. Do you know how long I've been trying to get a hold of you?" Pearl huffs, exasperated.

"Like, three days? Sorry."

"What happened? Are you okay? I haven't been seeing you in lunch and I'm really worried. And after you left so suddenly..." I feel a little pit form in my gut and wince. "Is it… something I did? Or…?"

"It's nothing, babe," I say in a voice I know but can't recognize as my own. "I've just been busy, you know?"

There's an extended pause before Pearl replies, as if she's trying to figure out whether or not I'm lying. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" She pleads.

And for once it's not me lying, because I couldn't ever tell Pearl about this. See, I'm like a book with a really good summary but a horrible plot- the more you read me, the less you end up liking me. And I'm afraid that if Pearl reads me any further, I'll get put back on the shelf.

Still, I murmur a soft, "Yeah."

"Okay…"

"Look, I have some uh… homework. Talk to you later?" I mumble, wishing that talking didn't feel so foreign and awkward. It feels like there's more I want to say, and the unthought words bubble in my chest, trying desperately to arrange themselves into any coherent pattern.

"Oh… Oh yes! Of course. Bye Lapis. Love you."

"You too," I say, hanging up.

I set my phone down, feeling sick yet satisfied at the results of our conversation. Out of instinct, I start typing out a message to Peridot about our talk before realizing what I'm doing and erasing it.

Peridot probably doesn't want anything to do with me. Word of mouth spread faster than the black plague or a viral video, and now the entire student body knows about our little altercation. You see, Beach city is a small town. And the thing about small towns is that the metaphorical creek powering the rumor mill is pretty slow most of the time. So things like our little outburst get eaten up by the school populous like it's pizza day and spat back out like a spitball.

Which is pretty unfortunate, because I'd rather just forget that it ever happened.

I lick my lip and curse at the still-present sting.

God, I hate this feeling. My body is tensed like I'm waiting for the gun to shoot blanks at a swim meet, and my leg jounces without my consent. When I get like this, I can't concentrate, and any sort of monotony agitates me, so I abandon my history homework and get up. I'm going to fail that class anyways, so why bother?

I kick my way through my rug of discarded clothing. I don't know where I'm going, but I don't care. I'm too exhausted to stand still, and when I get like this, the best remedy is to get lost.

My feet carry me downstairs and I scoop my shoes from the mat as I hurry outside. I lace up on the porch and stretch my arms above my head before breaking out into a run.

I've always liked running. Maybe it's the pure monotony of the sport, but I feel most at ease when my body starts working like a simple machine. Pivots and hinges move like solid water, drawing me across the uneven sidewalk like a practiced artist draws a line of charcoal across a piece of paper.

The sound of my rubber soles rasping against the concrete beneath me soothes me, and I start to fall into a rhythm. My mind wanders. I usually let it travel anywhere it wants, but this time, I've barred off a certain area for my own safety.

Don't think about her.

I turn a corner and sprint two houses down before slowing to a jog. I'm starting to sweat.

Don't think about how she held you.

My ragged breath is the only thing louder than the blood roaring in my ears. There's an overturned trash can in the middle of the sidewalk. I effortlessly vault over it and continue on.

Don't think about what she said.

A red car drives past me and I give it a little smirk before putting on a full burst of speed and racing it to the corner. It wins by a second and I pause to catch my breath as it motors further down the street.

Don't think about how she kissed you.

Oh god, please don't think about that.

I come to a stop, exhausted. Not so much because of the run, but because of my mind overworking itself.

I pick my head up and try to take in my surroundings. The quiet atmosphere and stench of freshly cut grass betrays that I'm in the suburban part of Beach City. The part past the tourist trap façade by the boardwalk. Instead of amusement parks and beaches, there's a winding maze of houses and grocery stores.

Personally, I think it's the prettiest part of town.

I wish I was a photographer, because the sun is peeking perfectly over the thatched roofs of the houses, and the dissolving leaves are vibrant, forgettable shades of mahogany and citrus. It would be a nice picture, if I knew how to take it.

That's the thing about photography that I've always admired. I could sit here for hours taking pictures with my smartphone and never would I capture one photo that could make me feel like I do right now staring at the sight before me. But a photographer? They can take one that fills you with the same emotion and then more. They can make a picture smell like the crisp cusp of winter and feel like the sharp chill of early-autumn frost.

This aspect of immortalization infatuates me, because I know that everything is finite- words, language, and even entire civilizations.

And if I could have one picture to immortalize for the rest my finite life, I'd have one of a lightning strike in a storm. Because the blue light bouncing off of the thick gray storm cloud reminds me of her eyes.

Don't think about her.

But it's too late, because I'm already thinking about her. I've been thinking about her for the past three days now. No matter how far I cast my mind out to sea, she always reels it back in.

Actually, that would be a pretty neat song lyric. I mentally jot it down.

I breathe in. Low, long, languid. A big gulp of fresh air to suffocate me and set my lungs on fire. My throat burns from the heavy breathing. And now that I've got no energy left to amuse myself with, I contemplate my next plan of action.

After weighing the risks and bigger risks in my head, I decide that I want to see Peridot. I don't want to play this stupid game of aversion anymore while our friendship gets pulled like the melted cheese between a split mozzarella stick.

I know that if I text her, she'll be expecting me and fake sick or something, so I don't. I catch a glance of the street I'm on and discover that I'm only a block away from her house. Biting the inside of my cheek, I start walking, trying to formulate an excuse to see her. Something just level-headed enough for her to buy, and at the same time, just ridiculous enough for her to understand that I'm desperate.

I roll over some ideas in my head before quitting and deciding to wing it.

When I get to Peridot's plain yellow house, I'm a little startled to hear loud music blaring through her half-open window. And it's not that weird techy stuff that she likes, either. It's... Taylor Swift. 2008 Taylor Swift, to be exact. I begin to worry. Things must've really gone to shit if she's listening to country. I furrow my brow and knock on the door. I know she's home, but the music must be drowning me out. I check the driveway and groan when I find that her parents won't be coming to my rescue either.

"Yo! Peridot!" I yell, slamming on the door again.

I get nothing in return save for the twangy opening bits to 'Love Story'.

I growl and hurry to the side of her house where her window pokes out. There used to be a pretty big tree next to it that I could climb, but Peridot's landlord got rid of it when the roots started shifting the plumbing. I notice that there's a sturdy looking gutter-drain next to it.

"Peridot!" I roar again. Still, nothing.

I have half the mind to leave, but my feet are planted firmly into the ground. I couldn't escape if I wanted to.

Shit. I eye the gutter again. Okay, I decide, I'm totally desperate. Stepping close, I wrap my hands around it and tug. The pipe doesn't even budge. I experimentally hook my shoe into the grove between the gutter and the house's siding, gradually adding weight until it's completely carrying all my one hundred-some pounds. Gaining confidence like it's a ball rolling down a hill, I latch my arms onto the next portion of pipe and pretend it's the gym class rope, pulling myself up. As I inch myself up the perilous climb, I try to avoid thinking about what would happen if I slipped.

Do it for your stupid best friend, I tell myself as I lose my footing for a scary moment and shove my cheek against the cold gutter. The slick rubber of my shoes scrabble at the siding in order to catch traction. I'm too high up to drop down, and I don't think I'd want to start over again anyways, so I keep at it until I catch a foothold. Not too long passes before I pick up a rhythm again. The higher I go, the louder the gutter groans in protest. I can only hope that it won't collapse on me.

Finally, palms sweaty and body trembling with effort, I'm at the top. I manage to throw my arm on to Peridot's bedroom window. The volume of the acoustic guitar is absolutely overwhelming now, and I can understand why Peridot didn't hear me knock. I didn't know that laptop speakers could go so ear-splittingly loud.

"Peridot!" I yell, trusting myself just enough to let go of the pipe with my remaining hand and grab the window pane. I shove it open too hard and nearly lose my balance. My hands are slick, and they threaten to give any second, but I still manage to yell out one more warning. "If you're masturbating, cover it up now! I'm coming in!"

I don't know what kind of person you have to be in order to get off to 2008 Taylor Swift, but I don't want to learn something about Peridot that I'd rather forget.

Taking a deep breath, I check my grip one last time. And then, painstakingly slowly, I pull my legs off the pipe and let myself dangle. I adjust myself until my elbows lock and my hands are on the window sill. My hips touch the rim of the opening. And then, with all the control a swimmer should possess, I lean back slightly before swinging inwards, taking advantage of my momentum to tuck and roll into the room.

I end up flattening her plastic laundry bin with my dead weight, and there's a slight throbbing in my forehead, but other than those minor casualties, I'd say I pulled that off pretty well. I pull a nasty blue sock off of my face and try to gather my surroundings.

Peridot's room has hardly changed, save for her trash bin which is now filled with Big Donut packaging remnants. She's sitting on her bed peering over her laptop in pure horror with a half eaten donut in her hands. Her glasses are balanced precariously upon her thin face, and she pushes them up by crinkling her nose. Her eyes don't leave mine. Her expression is downright comical, and I'd be laughing at it if she didn't look like she wanted castrate me with the donut in her hands.

"What the fuck." Peridot pauses her music and pushes her computer from her lap, shifting off of her bed. She stands up cautiously, and then sprints to her window. She pokes her head out and then withdraws it, gaping in disbelief.

"How did you-"

"I climbed your gutter," I say with an unfitting yet natural goofy smile.

Peridot looks like she got slapped in the face. She sticks her head back out the window to make sure I didn't just cost her a house repair. When it's apparent that the drain is unharmed, She slams her window shut and takes a few steps back. I notice suddenly that she's wearing my coat, and some of my tension melts. It compliments her. Maybe it's because of the way it clings to her chest without accentuating her stomach. Or maybe it's because it's mine. I'm not sure if I care at this point.

"Soooo," I drawl, trying to seem as composed as my anxiety will allow me. "Wanna go swimming?"

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?" Peridot snarls, balling her fists. "Seriously, I want to know."

"Gee, I don't know where to start," I say, biting back a layer of poison. My bitter humor misses its mark, and Peridot growls. She tenses, takes a breath, and relaxes her shoulders. An exhausted expression passes her face.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're my friend."

"Am I?"

"Are you?"

We match each other word for word, our brains supplying our tongues without tax, the way all conversations with between best friends should be.

Peridot doesn't answer for a long time, inspecting me with stained steel eyes the remind me of factory machines.

"Okay," she says finally. She doesn't answer my question, but the action of relent is enough to convince me that I won't get shoved back out the window I came from.

"So that's a yes?" I ask, a wobbly grin on my cheeks.

"Oh my _god_. Okay, let me get this straight. You almost drowned me, I kissed you, and now we're friends again? Like nothing ever fucking happened?"

"I'm glad we're on the same page," I grin, stopping myself just as my hand goes to grab her arm. I make a show of coughing into my elbow, and look away. "So what's up with the Taylor Swift? You have a falling out with someone?"

There's a pause. And then; "You could say that," she says, cracking the absolute minimum degree of a smile.

"You're not having secret affairs without me, are you?" I ask, mocking horror. Peridot looks me over, debating whether to go with it or to sock me.

Eventually, she shrugs and settles on, "You never know."

Within the next minute, we're packed into Peridot's filthy junker of a Volkswagen (and I'm being generous with my adjectives here) and headed out to go swimming. Peridot tells me that her dad won't be home until ten, so I have until then to seduce her back into friendship with me. There's a nervous bug in my stomach, but I brush it off as leftover tension from the pool-kiss incident.

"So, are we going to the beach then?" Peridot asks, hands tightening around the steering wheel stiffly.

"No- take us to school," I instruct. "I have the keys to the gym. It'll be more private."

Peridot raises an eyebrow at my wording, but complies despite, pulling her yellow Volkswagen out of the drive and heading down the road to our school.

"So now that you've successfully tricked me into leaving my donuts, wanna tell me what's going on?" Peridot asks through grit teeth, nearly running a stoplight.

"The donuts! What a tragedy! Really though. I think I'm trying to keep the dying embers of our friendship alight, or something like that." I say, trapping her eyes with mine. The deep, swirling grays in her eyes seem to darken, like thick stratus clouds rolling in before a natural disaster.

"You're a real trip, Lazuli." Peridot sneers. I'm too nervous to quip back, so I leave it at that.

After a few more poor road safety decisions, Peridot manages to pull us into the school parking lot and settles her car besides the brick walls of the institution. I reach into my pocket and whip out my phone. Peridot got me a cute little keyring a few grades back that hooks on to my phone case and I've been using it religiously ever since. I grab the key between my fingers and jam it into the lock, swinging open the bulky glass doors with ease.

"I'm not supposed to be here," Peridot reminds me, raising a brow.

"Well school ended like two hours ago so..." I reassure her, walking her into the locker rooms. Most of the kids keep their swimsuits in the metal lockers from the first day of class up until the end of the semester. They recommend we wash them at least once a week to keep them in line with some sort of health code, but Peridot washes hers every two.

We wordlessly retreat to our lockers to find our suits, and once Peri's one piece and board shorts are in her hands, she skitters to the bathroom stalls.

"Hey, wait!" I yell, stopping her.

"What now?"

I hurry over to wedge my way between her and the stalls, raising an eyebrow. "Relax," I say, "nobody's here. Just change out in the room like a normal person, alright? Stop making it weird."

"You're the only one making things weird," Peridot snaps. "I'll pass."

"Stop being an ass. You're totally sexy, I swear," there's an undertone of truth to that statement, and even if I don't recognize it myself, Peridot certainly does.

Peridot blushes bright red and turns around furiously unzipping my swim coat and setting it besides her. "If that's what you want," Peridot grumbles. The ease of getting her to shed her clothes amuses me, for the sheer platonic fact that she is the most pigheaded person I know.

I watch in muted interest as she nervously pulls up the hem of her shirt. My heart picks up and my breath slows down. To be honest, I've never even seen past Peridot's midriff. Those awkward friend moments where you see a little more than originally intended? We never had those. Peridot was always adamant on putting at least three concrete walls and a blindfold between my eyes and her skin. This is definitely new.

Not to say that I don't enjoy the change of pace.

Peridot quickly realizes that I'm staring and turns a deep shade of red. "Look, I know I'm positively stunning, but please stop being a fucking creep and turn around," She demands, crossing her arms over her chest and dropping her shirt back down.

"R-right. That's what I- shit. Okay." I stammer, face red and eyes darting away. Based on the little snicker I hear from behind me as I twist around to get my suit, Peridot finds me pretty damn amusing. At least one of us does.

I try to focus on suiting up as I take off my shorts, but it's hard to focus when I know that Peridot's practically the human manifestation of Pandora's box three feet away.

And unlike Pandora, it takes all of ten seconds for my curiosity to get the better of me.

I tilt my head just enough to see that she's down to a pair of green striped underwear with the words 'NOT EVEN BLACKBEARD COULD STEAL THIS BOOTY'. I stifle a giggle because Peridot is the only person who would unironically buy something so tacky.

"You done?" I ask, slipping my swimsuit straps over my shoulders. When I don't hear a response, I make a show of clearing my throat and speak up again, "What, Blackbeard got your ass? Come on. Are you done?"

"You little shit!" Peridot yells, and I turn around to see her face redder than a stop sign. She curls her arms together, and that's when I see it.

It's a huge purple blemish staining the pale skin on her upper arm. It's deep and discolored, and it looks eerily like finger marks. Peridot catches my eyes, and her hands shoot up to the bruise immediately, covering it up.

"That-,"

"I fell," Peridot lies immediately, as if she had been planning on my questioning.

I step closer, my eyes flickering from the wound to her own. She looks down and away, like a guilt-ridden pet. God, that thing is huge. It takes up her entire upper arm. I inspect it quietly.

"Can I-,"

"I'd rather you not. And if you're over your arm fetish, let's go swim." Peridot pushes past me and out the locker room into the pool deck. I follow behind her, slowed by a painful weight on my chest. It's gotta be a pretty bad situation if Peridot is suggesting physical activity. Still, I go along with it. It's not like we're foreign to leaving bruises on each other.

The pool deck is very strange without the presence of other students to keep it alive. The entire room seems like it's suspended in time, with only the gentle ticking of the wall clock to ground you in reality. Even the pool water is motionless. It almost looks like stained blue glass. The scent of sweat and chlorine is so loud that you can taste it in the stuffy air. But I don't care- I love it. I get my high from this overpowering sensation of chemical water.

Peridot grimaces before sitting down by the edge and easing herself in. She rattles like a snake as she submerges her hips, and her hands fly up to her chest, keeping dry out of instinct. She turns back around at me.

"Aren't you getting in? The water's," she suppresses a shiver, "just lovely."

I laugh and take a few steps back. "Just watch me."

Running forwards, I tuck my entire body into a roll as soon as my feet leave the poolside. I careen forwards and feel the rush of cold ice upon in what feels like an instant. I hold my breath and swim back to the edge, coming up for air when my nose bumps the tiled wall. Peridot wipes off droplets of water from my splash and looks less than impressed.

"Show off."

"Sinker."

We share a short laugh, and I feel amazing because we're both finally smiling. I haven't seen that goofy look on Peridot for weeks. It ends too soon, but I'm begging for more. And I always get what I want.

"Come on, Peri. Head under. Don't be lame," I urge, splashing some water at her.

"Right, right, okay." Peridot takes a breath and dunks herself underwater. She spends hardly a second under before shooting up and yelling. "That's cold! Fuck!"

I laugh and paddle up next to her. "Now that you're used to the water, let's do some practices. I am not having you kill my grade. And since you've missed gym for the past three days, you need to catch up."

"Who's fault is that?" Peridot snaps, quirking a brow.

"Um, yours, actually," I retort. She looks like she's about to protest, but I stop her. "Now come on, let's do this."

Peridot nods and begrudgingly follows me along as I ease down the length of water. She's swimming vertically again. I groan and correct her verbally. I'm too afraid to touch her. I'm afraid that I'll bruise that delicate skin again without even knowing it.

We swim for a little while before Peridot slumps against the pool deck and calls a time out.

"One sec- let me catch my breath. Not everyone's an Olympic champion like you."

"Okay," I offer her a cocky grin. She accepts it with an audible sigh and a roll of her eyes.

She hoists herself up on the pool deck. I want to follow, but one look at that nasty bruise stops me. I don't want to get too close should we get out of hand again. I stay in the water, contemplating my options.

"Don't you wanna come up? I know how much you love being wet around me, but you should take a break." Peridot says as she brushes a lock of damp blond hair away from her eyes. I blush and grumble something inaudible before swimming to the other side of the deck and getting out. Peridot raises an eyebrow.

I wanted to sit here to keep some space between us, but the view isn't horrible either. From where I'm sitting, the window across from me shines a beautiful strawberry gold ray of sunshine that highlights Peridot's face like a perfectly placed backlight.

"Lapis, I know what you're doing," Peridot says suddenly, her face takes on a solemn grimace, and I know she's not in the mood for one of my emotionally evasive humorous cop-outs.

"Oh yeah?"

"You're trying to keep your distance because you're freaked out about this dumb bruise," Peridot hypothesizes. I wince. Why does she have to be so damn smart?

"Well, I mean, I did hurt you," I grumble, feeling guilt well up in my chest once more. I cross my arms over it tightly, clenching my fists.

"Like that's anything new to me. It's not like we wrestle all the time or something. Not at all."

"You know what I mean," I assert. "I hurt you without even knowing it. My mind just like, blanked, y'know? I lost it." I pause for a long time before finally letting my arms fall. "I'm scared that I'll do something like that again, y'know? I'm like, real fucking scared." I furrow my eyebrows and look at my submerged feet. The last sentence takes everything I've got to choke out, because showing weakness has never been acceptable and here I am bluntly showing Peridot where the chink in my armor is.

Maybe she knows that I'm being cautious with my vulnerability, or maybe she's sick of being invincible herself, because she only hangs her head.

"It's okay," she whispers after some time. "I mean, no, actually. It's not okay. But I forgive you." Her voice magnifies as it bounces from wall to tiled wall, and I'm overwhelmed.

"Aren't you scared too?"

"Maybe. I don't know," she says, and I know that she is.

We're silent for a long time after that. But it's a good silence. The kind that feels like the absence of words speak volumes alone.

If a picture is worth one thousand words, then this precious blank slate is worth none. And I think that's what makes it so valuable. We can use this sheet of white to write anything we want: a tragedy, a love story, a happy ending- it's all new and fresh and full of potential. And it's all very overwhelming. So I let the silence be- at least for another ten minutes.

I stare at the still water beneath me, watching the liquid glass as it rings around my legs.

I unclasp my closed fist and examine my large hands.

I cast a shy sort of glance in Peridot's direction, trying to absorb the way the sun filters through her hair in a split second or less.

I see and I smell and I taste and I feel. And suddenly it's all too apparent to me that I don't exist in a vacuum and that I am alive.

And then I talk.

"Let's play a game. It's called Marco-Polo-,"

Peridot cuts me off immediately. "I'll pass."

"Not for the water," I clarify. "No physical activity involved. I just think it'll be good for us to set some boundaries, you know?"

Peridot releases a cynical laugh and purses her lips. "This sounds like a _fun_ game," she sneers.

"So?"

Peridot decides to humor me. "Okay, Lapis. How do I 'play'?"

"I'm going to do something and say Marco. If you're comfortable with it, say Polo. If it makes you uncomfortable say, uh... 'fish out of water'," I explain. I'm making this up as I go, but Peridot isn't calling bullshit yet.

So I stand up.

"Marco."

"Fish out of water."

I reel back, "Really?!"

Peridot snickers. "No. I'm messing with you. This is stupid."

I roll my eyes. "Just go along with it. For me, at least."

Peridot sighs and crosses her arms. "Polo," she grumbles.

I smile and take three steps forwards, careful to read her body language in case she feels obliged to say Polo without meaning it.

"Marco?"

"Polo."

I nod, and, feeling a tad braver, I take another three steps. I'm at the corner of the pool deck now, and only a small stretch of space interrupts Peridot and I.

"Marco?"

"Polo."

I close the gap. Peridot looks up at me and seems to shrink. I knit my brows.

"Marco?"

She pauses before answering, "Polo."

I sit down and lean in, so that my shoulder touches her good arm. She tenses, but takes a deep breath. I see her jaw lock.

"Marco?"

"Polo," she replies evenly.

I rest my hand on top of hers, and I'm shocked at how warm they are. I notice for the first time that they're small enough to be completely drowned in mine and inexplicably, this thought makes me smile.

"Marco?"

"Polo."

I slip my fingers between the spaces of her own. Her breath hitches.

"Marco?"

"Why are you doing this?" She asks, voice wobbly and riddled with doubt heavier than the bags pulling at her eyes.

I wish I could manage more than a sad stare, but all the words I want to say are hidden in the pool water and I can't find them. God, Peri, I think, I wish I knew.

"Marco?" Is all I respond with.

"... Polo."

How far can one go before a friendly encounter becomes inherently romantic? How easy is it to push a lover out of one's mind if in the pursuit of something else? I wonder this as my hand wanders to her cheek. My fingers slip under her jaw almost lovingly, and I tilt her face to mine. Our eyes lock in place like rusted gears.

"Marco?"

"Polo."

My hand drifts down to her bad arm. I motion for her to twist her body so that I can see. Peridot's movements are tight and jerky (imagine the predestined movements of a theme park animatronic) as she pulls her legs from the water and crosses them, turning to face me. I inspect the bruise closer, trying to imagine what my hands must've felt like creating it. I wrap my fingers around it loosely.

She freezes.

"Stop- just- no." Peridot whimpers, pulling away. "Fish out of water." I retract my hand instantly.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," I whisper frantically. I put some space between us. "Are you okay?"

"F-fine. You can keep going. Just not there, alright?" Peridot takes a deep breath and scoots closer to me until we're in the same position as before.

"Okay. Okay. Just tell me to stop when I go too far."

"I'm not dumb. I will."

I take care to avoid the injury I'd caused and let my hand wander to her knee instead. Peridot shivers.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Polo," she breathes.

"Okay."

A million and two things must be racing through her head, because she's all too quiet. It's disconcerting to see her sit so rigidly still and proper.

I drag my hand up her thigh. She winces and bares her teeth.

"Oh no," I mutter, recognizing the expression of pain. "I didn't-"

"Polo," Peridot snaps.

"Can I look?" I ask, my lip trembling. I stare at my hands. They're so large compared to her. They can do so much damage.

"Polo."

I gently use my large five-fingered death traps abd roll back the leg on her board shorts to reveal her thigh. Staining her pasty skin is another paint splatter of purple and yellow. I hardly even remember touching her there but it's apparent to me that no other hand could cause that kind of mark. I roll down the fabric and pull my hands away.

"I'm so sorry. Peri, I-,"

"It's fine. Seriously, since when did you start acting your age?" she grumbles, smoothing out her swim trunks.

I force out a laugh if not for any other reason than to laugh. And then I keep going. I move back to her hands, although I've already covered them.

I know what I'm doing, but I hardly trust myself to stop. Something draws me to this, in the way a thief is drawn to an unlocked house.

"Marco?"

"Polo?" This one comes out as a question. As if Peridot is finally realizing that this innocent game to discover personal boundaries is getting a tad more complex.

I gently pin down her hands and lean forwards so that our noses almost bump. I could lose it all in one move if I wanted to. I could lose a best friend and a girlfriend in one deadly move.

I could lose control.

And that's exactly what I intend to do.

"Marco?"

"P-polo."

I push forward so that our foreheads touch. I can taste her breath mix with mine. They're both feverish and ragged, and Peridot's quivers with uncertainty and anticipation. I see the muscles in her neck and shoulders fight against the compelling urge to move, but I can't tell if they intend to go further or closer to me.

I could back out right now and stop myself from ruining my life. I could pretend that this is a silly joke and go back to tutoring Peridot. I can stop whenever I want to.

But the thing is, I really don't want to stop.

"So consider this: what if I have some minor complications saying Marco due to the condition of my lips?" I propose, snickering a bit when Peridot's eyes shoot open.

"Um," Peridot replies with a flustered air of awkwardness, "I guess I'll just punch you if I don't like it."

"Go for the throat," I whisper.

And with that, I close the gap between our mouths. And everything in my universe kind of explodes.

I think Pearl once explained what it would theoretically feel like if you were caught in a black hole. You would get stretched like trampoline, and compressed into something the size of a pinhead. You'd burn and freeze at the same time, and since you're the only medium for sound to travel through in the vacuum of space, your screams would only tear through your mutilated body.

That's how it feels right now as I pull my fingers from Peridot's and use them to sift through her unruly hair. That's how it feels as she brings hers to rest on my collar bones and trail the curves of skin and muscle. That's how it feels when this entire culmination of conflict comes crashing down with a single kiss by a freezing poolside. And there's a split second where I realize that this is something I've wanted since forever. And this sensation of wanting only amplifies when Peridot pulls away.

"Marco?" I ask, breathless.

"Polo." She hisses.

"Again?"

"Please," I eat up her tone as she says this, because it's so faint and heavy at the same time.

And because the empty feeling in my chest is tearing me apart, I smash our lips together again just to see if I can fill it with her breath.

I can tell by the almost desperate way she arches into my embrace that the pool-kiss incident wasn't an act of thoughtless intent. The way her restless fingers knead my neck and hip betrays every emotion she's ever bottled up without a single uttered word. And it's incredibly overwhelming, but I don't care anymore. I don't care at all.

I pull back again and smile. She returns the gesture.

"Marco?"

"Polo. Wow. Polo." She breathes.

And we laugh because this is all so strange and unprecedented, and we have no idea what just happened, but we're glad it happened anyways.

And then we stop laughing very suddenly, because we both start to understand the gravity of our situation. This is wrong. We shouldn't be doing this. And we can't go back now. Like all things in my life, I realize the absolute magnitude of my complete fuck-upery too late.

"What are you going to tell Pearl?" Peridot asks, her voice laced with tension. Something tells me she's expecting an answer I can't give her.

I wonder if she can read the torn look in my eyes, or the way I squeeze my fingers into fists. I hope she can't because they make it obvious that I'm panicking.

That kiss wasn't a joke, and we both know it. Stopping this now would sever our relationship even further, and after the past month, I just want to be her friend again. Likewise, telling Pearl would be the rough equivalent of going to Walmart on Black Friday after they've marked down their flat screens by 90%. In other words- suicide.

It's okay, though, because I know how to control this and I won't let it get out of hand.

In a moment of impulse, I grab Peridot's hand and give it a soft squeeze. The comfort is returned eagerly. I swallow a wad of spit before speaking.

"This doesn't concern Pearl. It's going to stay between you and me, okay? Nobody can know. Do you understand? Nobody can know," I say, my tone stern and detached. I don't recognize my voice as it comes out, and I don't think Peridot does either.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when her heart shatters. Her eyes gloss over, and she looks like she's trying to conceal tears. She heaves a shaky breath and grits her teeth.

I'm stuck in silence, wondering when, exactly, I lost my mind. Something tells me that this isn't just a spur of the moment action- it's the ultimate culmination of every mistake I never learned from and everything thereafter.

My vice is dependence, because I've put so much of myself into these two people, that losing them would mean losing myself, too. And now I've jammed myself into a situation where there is only one way to keep both. It's a good thing that swimmers aren't afraid of sinking.

Some say that a picture is worth one thousand words. But right now, in this moment of tension and silence, ours is only worth one.

"Okay."

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who read, favorited, followed, or reviewed! You make my day!**

 **In addition, I still track the #the talking head game tag on tumblr like a hound should you ever find interest in it!**


	9. Peridot Gets Deep

**Hey! I'm very bad at writing fluffy stuff, so please bear with.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Cheating, Disassociation, Mentions of Sex**

* * *

Peridot Gets Deeper Than the Shit She's In

If you mashed together every lewd, dangerous, inconsiderate, and downright idiotic thing that Lapis had ever done, this would still take the cake. And honestly, I don't think I'm too much better on our dim spectrum of moral grayness.

After all, the war appeal may have come from Lapis, but I'm the short-sighted idiot who accepted it.

And that's what makes me mad- I've read enough forbidden romance stories to beat the dead horse into a sick, teenage-hormone filled oblivion, and I _still_ agreed to this. I'm still letting Lapis have me even though I don't get to have her. I'm still giving in to a plot device set in place to wreck absolute fucking havoc upon my life.

Why? Damn, if I knew, I wouldn't be fucking with her in the first place. But I am, and I think it all whittles down to two things, selfishness and desperation. Both of which I am in no short supply of, I assure.

It's different when you're the one experiencing everything instead of reading about it. It's like every action you perform suddenly has weight, and they seem like a phantom dominos, ramming into the next, and creating a string of interrelated consequences, and suddenly, something you say you would never do becomes the next link in your iron-cast chain.

And frankly, you find out that you don't care.

My dad once told me that you should never make a gamble unless you're absolutely positive that the chance of payout will overwhelm the fate of loss.

I know that the fate of loss here is far too large to play, but I don't care, because Lapis isn't a Texas Hold 'Em table in Vegas, she's a gas station scratch ticket. And I'm a poor sucker with three extra dollars in my pocket and a minute to waste on that sliver of a chance that I might just make something worthwhile out of a chance like her.

But I don't think about all of this as I claim her hand as mine for the hour like she's some kind of human timeshare- and I don't think about Pearl, or school, or myself. I just let myself exist without thinking for just one moment.

And it's nice until Lapis takes a long breath and disturbs the stagnant water.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, even though I know she's not.

I avoid her pleas, both to spite her and because I've had enough feels-y conversation for one evening. "Do you want to swim more?"

Lapis cracks open an eye to read my expression before answering, "Nah, not really."

"Good," I say with a thankful sigh. "Me neither."

"Let's get out of here," Lapis decides, nodding her head towards the changing rooms. One look at the freezing pool water has me agreeing eagerly and following her lead.

I avoid her eyes as I grab my things from the bench and slink towards the bathroom stalls. Being forced to change in front of her once is more than enough awkwardness to fulfill me, and now that she's already poked fun at my tacky underpants, I'm a tad reluctant to let her know that my bra depicts a cartoon ghost saying 'BOO-bies!'.

Lapis hides her disappointment like a large person hides behind a pole during a game of hide-n-seek.

I change hastily, peeling the water-stuck suit from my skin and hanging it on the stall door. I pretend I'm selecting armor in an RPG as I equip my shirt, shorts, and Lapis' swim team jacket. Somehow, it smells even sweeter now. I zip it up, tucking my neck into the high collar snugly.

I nudge the stall door open and make my way back to the lockers, stashing my suit away without much thought. Lapis is already switched into her neon blend of authentic preppy sports attire. If she wasn't a complete academic moron, I might even be jealous of it.

"You look good," she says, granting me cheeky thumbs up.

"You look like a traffic sign for the colorblind," I snap back, offering her a more vulgar hand gesture.

Lapis shrugs. "That's fair."

I go to push past her, but she stops me suddenly by barring her arm in front of my chest. She has a stony look on her usually goofy face, and it almost scares me.

"What?" I ask, quirking a brow.

"I dunno. I guess I want to like, _you know_. Like, before we have to go outside again," she stammers, waving her hands wildly about her.

I know what she's saying. She wants to kiss me one more time before we have to expose ourselves to the cold sun and hide away again. I wish we didn't have to hide at all, but I indulge her anyways because that's just the kind of person she makes me.

"You're so dumb," I snort, smacking her playfully.

"You love it," Lapis coos. And maybe, possibly, even conceivably, she's right.

I lean forwards, biting the corner of my lip. I'm still very much new to the entire idea of being intimate, and when it comes to kissing, I have nothing but a collection of low-budget rom-coms to reference. Lapis meets me half-way, pressing our lips together too gently for such a scandalous affair.

I try to move back and copy her movements, but I'm sure that I'm screwing something up in the process.

Lapis pulls back suddenly to stifle a giggle and I sweat.

"Wh-what? I didn't-?"

"No!" She assures me quickly, "No, you're fine. It's just- wow, this is really weird. I mean, like a month ago I'd never-,"

"I'm _very_ aware," I cut her off through grit teeth. Her eyes widen in sudden understanding and she gasps.

"How long have you-,"

"Since the Great Sexuality Crisis of 7th grade," I grimace.

Lapis is quiet for a moment, lost in thought, before finally replying. "Me too."

And then she kisses me again, and I try to figure out how many years I've wasted falling in love and never experiencing it. And I'm honestly a little disappointed, because that's a lot of potential sex I've missed out on.

Lapis moves down to nip at my neck gently, pulling my sensitive skin with her teeth like I'm anything more than a uselessly warm body. Her fingers are pressed firmly to my hips, the pads of her thumbs rolling around my skin lazily. Her lack of awkwardness almost makes me sad, because it betrays that these motions aren't at all as new and special to her as they are to me.

As she tilts my neck up for better access to my jaw with practiced movements, I wonder how many times she's done this with Pearl. As she makes my eyelids flutter shut and a freaky whine escape my throat, I tell myself that right now, it doesn't matter.

After eliciting another series of embarrassing noises from the void of my throat, Lapis laughs lowly, "Oh my god, this is turning you on, isn't it?"

My eyes go wide. "You're the _worst,"_ I hiss, hiding my fire truck red face the sleeves of her jacket.

"It is!"

"That's it, I'm leaving. Have fun on your own, you fucking clod." I grumble. I shove her off, red-faced and with dignity weaker that the moans I wish I hadn't released.

"Aw, come on Peri! I was joking!" Lapis snickers, hugging me from behind as I try to leave. She nuzzles me behind my ear like an overzealous cat. I shove her off with a jerky roll of my shoulders.

"You're-,"

"The worst, I know. Chill, Peri. I didn't mean to piss you off or anything," she rolls her eyes.

Face burning out worse than a one-hit wonder, I study the tiles at my feet for a few intense moments before finally breaking the silence. "It kinda was, by the way," I admit.

Lapis breaks out into a wide smile once more, "No way! Oh my god. You're so innocent."

"You're some kind of ass, Lazuli," I sneer, shoving past her, relishing the bubbly sound of her laughs as they echo off the locker room walls behind me.

I fish out my car keys as I stumble outside, hands shaking too hard to fit them into the lock. After some trial and error, I eventually manage to open the doors of my Bug-On-Wheels and ease myself into the driver's seat with Lapis in tow. Lapis settles into my car and knocks over a half-full Monster Energy can, grimacing like one grimaces after touching wet food while cleaning the dishes.

She's offered to help me clean it more than occasionally because the growing mess tends to fuck with her borderline obsessive tendencies, but I've refused. To be honest, I've kinda grown used to the funk of spoiling food. Lapis once described, in all of her flowery verse, that my car was "basically the nastiest fucking thing I've ever had to exist within a fifty foot radius of".

I probably shouldn't've taken as much pride from that statement as I have.

I wait until all the redness has left my face before taking a labored breath and jamming my keys into the ignition.

"So," I drawl as I throw the old stick-shift into first and ease off the clutch. "I don't mean to kill whatever mood we have going on, but what exactly are we now?" It stalls at first, and requires another three attempts before finally spluttering to life.

Lapis stiffens and jerks her shoulders up and down in the most robotic attempt at a shrug I'd ever seen.

"Dunno," she admits. "There really isn't a title for what we are. I mean, I guess we're like, friends with benefits?" She draws her lips into a fine line, taking on the likeness of a substitute teacher already worn down from an unusually rowdy bunch of kids and considering a different career path.

"Oh no," I mumble, "Not that."

I downright refuse to hold the title of someone who only fucks around for pleasure. That's a phrase reserved for someone and their flat mate who are both single and reconsidering emotional attachments to their relationships. That's what you call two guys who always find their way to the back room at parties, yet still insist they're seeking girlfriends. That's not me. I don't want to just be Lapis' sexual relief when Pearl isn't enough. And maybe I'm funny because I don't want our less than morally elegant situation to influence our romantic bonds.

But mostly, I'm just greedy.

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't feel right, okay?" I hiss. I don't explain further.

Lapis crosses her arms and invests her eyes in the seams of her hoodie. "Well, I mean, you know you're not like, my girlfriend, right? I mean-,"

"Painfully aware," I assure her, grinding my teeth together and tightening my bony fingers around the steering wheel and wishing it was Pearl's neck instead.

"Look, I'm sorry. Never mind," Lapis snaps, making a feature film out of a resigned sigh. "We can be whatever you want us to be, okay? Whatever you want."

The offer is tempting, but I'm stubborn and bitter, and I block it out. Instead, I slowly speed up, my foot twitching on the acceleration. "You make it sound as if this _bothers_ me," I growl, shifting us into second, and then third.

"Slow down, dumbass!" Lapis yelps, the steel in her voice bending just a bit before straightening out again. "Look, let's not do this. Do we really need to put a label on this? Can't we just be friends?"

Being friends really isn't a luxury we have access to anymore, and we both know that. Yet still, the romantic idea allures me, and I end up offering her a noncommittal grunt.

"Lemme guess; I'm taking you home?" I ask, attempting to derail the awkward silence that grows like fungus around us.

"Sure."

I turn down her street and park next to her tree lawn. We're shaded under a dying shield of lime-yellows and undecided greens. Lapis' hand somehow moves to my thigh in this time frame, and she begins to rub gentle circles through my jeans. I wish I knew who she was trying to reassure.

I say nothing for a long time, caught up in the way the pad of her thumb is moving against my leg. It's such a simple act, but I somehow find comfort in it anyways.

"Are your parents home?" I ask in a content voice to gentle to be mine.

Lapis smirks and rolls her eyes. "Totally. That's why the driveway is completely empty, and the lights aren't on."

"Sorry," I grimace, looking down at the McDonalds bag under my shoe.

"Don't worry, Peri. I'll be fine." Lapis assures me. Still, she shows no sign of leaving or even attempting to do so.

"Peridot?" She asks as her thumb is displaced by her palm. "If it's not weird, can I like, kiss you? I mean, like a goodbye kiss or whatever." She averts my gaze and forms phantom chord shapes with her hands. The song on the radio fades into a cheesy party remix, and I almost have half a mind to shut it off because it's really fucking with the mood.

Her face bears a ruddy glow, and fuck, does she look beautiful with her teeth digging into the slightly chapped flesh of her lower lip. If this is what Pearl sees every time they're together, then maybe I can begin to understand why she's so possessive. If Lapis was mine, and I mean _really_ mine, then I think I'd be pretty protective of her, too.

"You can kiss my ass," I sneer before leaning in to press our lips together.

Lapis cups my skull with a big bear paw hand and pushes me down under the dashboard to hide us from curious eyes. Right now, I'm bent at an awkward angle, hands clenched tightly enough to leave half-moon indentations on my palms, and feverishly kissing my best friend to a song about getting laid on a Friday night.

It's fucking _perfect._

And in this moment of perfection, I am on fire and burning through the pages of every drugstore love story I've ever held between my paper-cut fingertips.

And for once, maybe not everything sucks.

I feel as if it ends too early when Lapis moves to pull away, so I try my hardest to lean forwards and hang on to that last split-second of teenage immortality. And even when it's finally the feeling is finally severed, I am satisfied.

"That wasn't my ass," I point out, outmatched and overwhelmed.

"Really? I couldn't tell the difference," Lapis retorts tartly, feigning shock. I roll my eyes and flick her off.

Lapis wipes her swollen lips on her sleeve, and I almost feel offended because it took me several years to make that blemish, and now she's scraping it off in less than several seconds.

"You free Saturday?" Lapis asks, fixing her bangs.

"Uh, yeah, totally," I say, trying to conceal the goofy grin on my face because as a solid rule, I do not make such expressions.

"Right. Saturday then! We can see a movie or something dumb like that," Lapis declares, her loose proposal ringing in my ears like the alarms in a winning slot machine.

She kicks the door open unceremoniously, tripping on a small burial mound of coffee cups and falling the rest of the way out of my Volkswagen. She wipes the grass from her pants, wincing.

Suddenly, there's a ring from Lapis' ass. Her hands fly to her back pocket, and she whips out her cell. She stares at the screen for a long time before finally answering on the last buzz. She motions for me to wait one second and turns away.

"Hi babe," she whispers as if she thinks I can't hear. I feel my insides, which were bloated with aliveness only moments ago, deflate completely.

"Yeah, I figured. Yeah, yeah. I'm free Saturday."

No, I mouth desperately, don't.

Look, I don't know what I did to make the universe hate me, but I figured that it could at least let me have this. Pearl's had Lapis for the past month- why can't I have her for one stupid fucking Saturday?

"Uh-huh. You too." Lapis hums before hanging up. She turns back around and fakes a wide smile. I know it's fake, because it's the same big grin she gave me when I invited her to an anime convention in the 8th grade.

Lapis snorts almost disbelievingly. "Mom finally called," she says with crossed fingers.

I wish I could believe her.

"O-okay," I manage, jerking the stick into first. "I… I gotta go now."

I'm sure Lapis says goodbye as I peel away down her street, but I've already blocked her out with the sound of my squealing tires. As if it knows that I'm distressed, the Bug doesn't stall once. I lose control fast and soon, the only things going higher than my miles-per-hour is the volume on my radio and the acidic levels of stress colonizing in my head.

I don't even stop at the intersection before ripping my wheel left and just narrowly avoiding a collision with a bright red jeep. The driver and I share a few blared horns and some choice words thrown to the wind before parting.

In a moment of clarity, I decide that I should probably park and cool down before I become a traffic hazard. I drive to a shady area on the side of the road and turn my car off, letting myself fall victim to the soft ticking of the cooling engine.

I want to throw a tantrum, and I want to scream, and I want to hit something that can feel. It's all a very animalistic and childish instinct, and yet it's something I can't help but crave anyways. However, the day's events have rendered me too exhausted to indulge myself in my emotions, so I simply close my eyes, lean back, and let them tear at my exposed chest like starving dogs instead.

I wish I didn't love her. Who could love someone who not only stabs you in the back, but also twists the knife? Who could love someone like Lapis Lazuli?

I can name two people off the top of my head. And they're both sore dumbasses fighting over the smallest stick in a weak attempt to prove that anything is better than nothing.

I don't remember shutting down, or finding my way home to my bed, but when I come into conscious thought, I am curled into myself upon my black comforters. I furrow my brows, trying to define the emotion rippling in my chest like a built-up wave.

It's the feeling of losing three hours of progress on a video game due to a power outage. It's the feeling of being too exhausted to fall asleep at 4 am as you stare at the display of your alarm clock and wonder if the walls of your room were always this solid. It's the feeling of skipping every track on your music player because you know that they will only end up being ultimately unsatisfying.

It's feeling nothing.

Nothing but anger and regret and sadness and deep-rooted jealousy. And to feel that all at once would make me physically break down, so my body makes it all blend into a hazy numbness in a last-ditch effort to protect me.

I tighten my hand into a loose fist and watch as my fingers curl inwards. I notice the way my already pale knuckles turn white as the skin above them thins over the bone, and I wonder if they would fit with Lapis'.

Knowing my luck, they will.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who gave this story a read, review, favorite, or follow! I really am thankful!**


	10. Fart Logic

**Hey! Sorry for the continual slow updates- school is actually killing me, and life is actually killing me, and the point here is that it's pretty difficult to crank out quality work in short periods of time while you're spending all your time dodging the metaphorical bullets of quarter exams. Don't worry, I very much intend to finish this- it's honestly the most impressive thing I've ever written and I'm not sure if I want to give that up yet.**

 **Anyways.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Swearing, cheating, emotional abuse, mentions of violence.**

* * *

Fart Logic

I hate the music on my radio.

Because the music on my radio makes me think of Lapis Lazuli, and when I think of Lapis Lazuli, I remember that she's ditching me for Pearl right now, and I realize that she's probably making out with her and putting me out of her mind like the due dates for her math homework. This thought, if you want some statistics on my current mental state, is 2/3's annoying and 1/3 infuriating.

I mean, the connotations on those adjectives could've been _much_ more vicious had she not possessed the decency to at least call and tell me that she had an 'emergency swim meet two towns over' to attend.

"Peridot, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Some stupid swim thing just came up- I'm gonna be out of town all day. Honestly, I'm so pissed because like, I would've enjoyed a day's notice but, you know, whatever, right?" She had rambled as soon as I answered the phone. I imagined her faking an exasperated expression while talking to keep her tone in character.

"So…"

"I can't hang out today," Lapis concluded. "I'm really sorry, Peri. Maybe another time?"

"I can drive you if you want," I offered despite already knowing the answer.

"Nah, it's two cities over- I don't want you to waste your gas. The bus'll take me, don't worry."

"…Yeah. Sounds good. We can hang out another time then."

"Thanks. You're the best, Peridot." Lapis had beamed, even going so far as to fake a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, whatever. Bye." I disconnected and tossed the house phone onto my desk carelessly. I hadn't bothered with saying an 'I love you' because I was an affair, not her girlfriend, and it seemed a tad improper to say it in that case.

She probably wouldn't say it back anyways. And really, there's no point in admitting that you love somebody if all you're going to get in return is a noncommittal 'you too'.

Fast forward an hour- in which time I have retrogressed from my swivel seat to the carpet and have achieved very little else. I'm propped up against my bed frame, letting Alduin make himself comfortable on my heat-emitting meat sack of a body. Without any real instant distractions to keep my mind occupied, I relent to switching on the radio on my digital alarm clock and scoffing at every pre-recorded guitar solo because I know Lapis can play it better.

The Eagles croon out another round of Hotel California and I bury myself into the warmth of an old gray hoodie. The fabric is loose on me and has been bathed in years of pumpkin spice and autumn leaves- so much so that it smells of a Yankee Candle store. I monotonously stroke Alduin's soft scales, letting myself get lost in the texture of his skin against the pads of my fingertips.

He wriggles a bit in my arms to expose a more sensitive part of his body, curling around my shoulders and lodging his head into the crook of my neck. I know you're really not supposed to let any kind of snake (even domesticated babies like Alduin) near your most precious oxygen vessel, but to be honest, if he decided to spontaneously constrict himself around my throat, I don't think I'd protest.

I remember pretending to talk to him when I was young and friendless, imagining that he could understand me. I had given him a voice, too- it was a low raspy drawl that sounded constantly as if he were on the verge of falling asleep.

I stare at him wistfully. I know that he's far more accustomed to dealing with the linear issues of children _("My swing got stolen again!" "This clod called me gay 'cuz I wouldn't kiss him- what's that even mean?" "etc. etc."),_ but because he had always given me sound advice in the past, I decide that I'm desperate enough to try and consult him again six years later.

" _What's wrong?"_ he hisses suddenly, giving me an almost quizzical look. His voice is just how I remember it, except maybe a little deeper.

I speak with him telepathically because I'm not sure how to explain having a one-sided conversation with my snake should my dad walk in.

" _Lapis was supposed to hang out with me today, but she ditched me for Pearl instead,"_ I transmit, scowling and making myself imagine that he understands. _"I mean, it's not like I care, but-,"_

" _You're jealous. You think she likes Pearl more,"_ Alduin states, slithering across my chest and into my lap. Our gazes catch, and because he has the same eye-locking compulsion that I do, his black beady eyes stay trained on mine.

" _Not exactly, I-,"_

" _Peridot, I am a figment of your imagination. You literally can't lie to me,"_ Alduin huffs.

" _You know, I liked you better when I was twelve."_

" _I liked you better when you were twelve, too. You weren't so whiny."_

I flash my tongue, and he parrots me. So far, attempting to resolve my relationship problems by pretending to talk to my pet snake has failed. I can't possibly imagine why.

I reluctantly submit to his accusations, casting an ashamed glance at my socks. _"Okay, so maybe I'm a little jealous."_ I admit, feeling my chest swell like it's filling itself with helium.

" _I see where you're coming from. Pearl is pretty. And smart. And she probably doesn't insult Lapis relentlessly. What were we talking about again?"_ Alduin blinks, and I suddenly receive great insight on why snakes should not pursue professions in therapy.

" _What the fuck, Al? Do you hate me or something?"_ I ask, gagging from the bitterness on my tongue. I cross my arms and retract my hand from his back. He bumps my arms with his nose a few times, ultimately relenting and letting his chin fall on me.

" _Considering I'm a being of_ your _imagination, I personally think the more appropriate question is 'do you hate yourself?'"_

" _I-I… No,"_ I say, and for once I really mean it.

" _Really? Wow, you've got some willpower, bud."_

" _You're not very helpful,"_ I grumble, rolling my eyes.

" _I am a snake with no concept of human relationships,"_ he counters in a deadpan that could rival mine.

" _That's fair."_

" _Also,"_ he adds, sticking his tongue out, _"you forgot to feed me. It's Saturday and I'm starving to death. Peridot, I think I see a white light. Am I dying?"_

I manage a small grin and uncross my arms. "Drama queen," I snicker, this time aloud.

I peel his body from my midsection, settling him back into his cage. He coils up and looks at me expectantly, because as far as he knows, I am a fresh kill factory. What he doesn't know is that he is a snake of upper-middle class caliber, and gets fed pre-slaughtered frozen mice from the local pet store.

I brush my greasy hair out of my face and step into some slippers before leaving the safe cavern of my smoke-bloated room and emerging into the hallway. I slither down the stairs and march to the freezer, opening it up and poking my nose inside. My eyes scan the near-empty shelves for my supply of frozen rodents, their search resulting fruitlessly.

I cast a glance into the living room, where dad's spread out like a cat on our couch and watching a college football game with feeble interest.

"Dad, are there any mice left?" I pop my head into the living room.

"Do you see any mice in the freezer?" He retorts without taking his glazed eyes from the television screen.

"No…"

"Then there's your answer," he says, smiling.

I thank him unceremoniously, nudging the freezer door shut. If there's any one thing my father has taught me, it's that dry humor is a heritable trait.

I don't even change out of my Daisy Duke-length pajama bottoms, as I grab my keys and walk out the front door with a declaration that I'll be home by eight. I probably look like I bought my appearance from a homeless man, but I don't deem buying snake food important enough to care.

I unlock my Volkswagen and hop in, slouching into the placid seat cushions. It makes a concerning spluttering noise as I start it up, but I find it in me to ignore it. As long as it takes me home and puts off responsible maintenance for one more day, I find that I don't really care what sounds it makes.

The Beach City pet store belongs to that strange little twilight zone between the tourist trap of the boardwalk and the inhabited suburbs. Because of this, there are almost always a number of vacationers mingling with the local residents. Today, it appears that the ratio of actual customers to people with visors taking inappropriate pictures of the fish is 1:4 respectively. I duck away from them regardless of homestead, sneaking to the back and snatching up the first box of Arctic Mice that catches my eye.

I skitter up to the register, settling my mice down on the counter with exact change. The transaction is both smooth and void of unnecessary conversation, and soon, I'm back in my car and jamming my keys into the ignition. I press down on the clutch as I shift my car from neutral to first. I pull back, earning myself an incredible three feet of pavement before my car makes a horrifying crunching noise and regurgitates the last of its use in the middle of a parking lot.

Since I can't just leave my Bug on Wheels in the middle of the lot, I end up squeezing back through the doors of the pet store and awkwardly asking the cashier if I can call a tow truck. He nods and wordlessly jerks his thumb over to the store's phone.

The tow motor is here within the hour, hooking my car up and offering to haul it to the car wash by the boardwalk. Since it'd be counter-productive toting it back home, I agree. I find myself sitting in the truck's passenger seat, trying to make small talk with a burly grizzly bear ten times my size and failing miserably. My hands are clasped over my lap and the unborn fetus of a new headache pounds at my ears.

He drives us up to Greg Universe's car wash and repair, passing me a receipt. I accept it begrudgingly, hopping out of the truck and watching him drag my car around the back like he's dragging a tired high-schooler out of bed. My car even groans to sell the metaphor.

When I see the wash's owner (his name is Greg if you haven't figured that out already), he's installing some brushes into the wash. He turns his almost-bald head and smiles at me brightly.

"Be with you in one sec!" he announces cheerfully.

I nod, turning my head away and sitting down on one of the lawn recliners parked outside. I draw my knees up and lay my head on them, using my arm as a makeshift pillow. The gentle echo of a radio permeates the thick garage walls, interrupted only by the occasional and grating whir of a power drill. A yellow shoddily made bike leans against the garage door.

The sun seeps through my clothing, warming my skin and boiling my reptilian blood. I let myself close my eyes and slip in and out of that strange phase of almost sleep in which I experience fleeting still-frames and fragments of dreams before losing them forever in conscious thought.

I am woken fully by the sound of flip flops clapping against the asphalt beneath me. I wake lazily, stretching and turning around. The sun seems to have dipped a few degrees, but not drastically.

"Alright," Greg says, wiping his sweating bald spot with an oil rag. "What's going on with your car? I saw them bring it in and she looks like she's in pretty bad shape. No offense, of course."

"Right," I say, waving him off. "I don't exactly know. It made this really bad sound as I was backing it up and just completely stalled." Because I know literally nothing about cars (nor do I care to do so), I can't tell if the face he's making is horrified or insulted.

I gamble on an uneven mix between the two.

"Yikes, that doesn't sound good. Uh-Unfortunately, I'm a little pre-occupied at the time being, but, uh, if you take it out to the garage, I'm sure my mechanic can help you out. Probably more than I can, too. She's a real whiz at this stuff, I'm tellin' ya," Greg rambles. A loud honk snaps him out of his spiel.

"Ah, sorry- I've gotta help someone. You can just go ahead inside." He says, sending me off, and rushing to the call of another customer by the entrance.

I trudge my way to the garage, training my eyes on the side door. The music inside seems to amplify in clarity and quality the closer I am, which sort of freaks me out because radios tend to do the opposite. I pause before settling my hand on the knob, transfixed by the sound of vibrating nylon. With wide eyes and a halted breath, I pull the door open and walk in.

If my glasses were the round headlights of a car, Lapis would've been the unfortunate deer caught in them. She freezes as soon as we lock eyes, letting her last chord ring out awkwardly. I've been hanging around her long enough to know that it's the climax chord- a full, open E.

Lapis swallows a wad of spit, and I almost take a sadistic pleasure in the fact that she looks like she's about to puke. "H-hey there, Peri," Lapis stammers. "What brings you?" Her voice cracks at the last syllable, signifying that I have the dominant position in this encounter. Somehow, this, and an offhandedly familiar smell, relaxes me enough to speak.

"Car broke down," I explain briefly, gesturing to the trashed vehicle outside.

"Is that so?" and like I couldn't expect this day to get any worse, Pearl pokes her head out from the hood of a truck like a curious animal on the first day of winter. Her pretty face is void of makeup and instead covered in grease and contoured in motor oil. Her ginger hair is rumpled and in a carless bun, shreds of it sticking out and breaking uniform.

I'm taken aback, as she hardly looks like herself. Hardly looks like the stressed, shoulder bag-donning teacher's pet that I see every day in science. She's outfitted in a way that looks both unusually and handsomely modest. And even though her blue jumpsuit is no fashion statement, I still feel as if she's outdone me without even trying.

And maybe that makes me mad, but I'm too desperate to get out of here to give a shit.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, my tone excessively abrasive.

Pearl blinks, then looks down at her Beach City Wash uniform. "I work here," Pearl deadpans.

"I- Right. That makes sense."

I bite my lower lip and find a focus point in one of the many mysterious black spots on the garage floor.

My eyes are torn away as I hear Pearl shuffle through some equipment and drop a handful of supplies in her fanny pack. Somehow, I hold back the scathing observation that she looks like a fucking tourist with it (and trust me, when half of your town is overrun with suburban vacationers and their screaming kids, 'tourist' is a pretty harsh insult).

"I'm going to check this out real quick, alright?" Pearl practically sings, tip-toeing over to where Lapis is stationed atop her workbench and offering her a tepid kiss.

In some ways, that chaste act pisses me off more than if she would've just shoved her tongue down Lapis' throat. I guess it's because they don't have to be overly-affectionate to establish their relationship, and it's almost as if she's rubbing that fact in my face.

Pearl grabs a crowbar from the shelf and tells me to show her where my car is anchored. I comply without any tart remarks, both because I'm too tired to do so and because you really don't want to insult someone with a three-pound iron crowbar. I wave my hand towards my Volkswagen, hoping that she'll just get done whatever she needs to get done and let me get the fuck home.

Pearl opens my door and scrunches her nose up in distaste. "Your car is absolutely filthy," she chastises. To prove a point, she kicks a fallen coffee cup with her boot.

"Sorry it's not up to your standards," I snap back, clicking my teeth together.

"Well, could you… clean it?"

"Why?"

Pearl fiddles with her crowbar as if to remind me that I'm in no place to argue with her. "Well," she sighs, exasperated, "I'm quite obviously working on something already, so if you don't, you'll just be sitting around doing nothing. That, and I'll probably be able to repair it more efficiently if I'm not holding my nose with one hand."

I almost tell her that it would take more than one hand to cover her _grand martelé_ sized beak, but I decide that I can save the insults for after she writes my bill. Biting my tongue, I submit with a stiff nod.

"Can Lapis help? It'll be faster," I suggest suddenly.

"Well, your car isn't really her responsibility, is it?" Pearl points out matter-of-factly. "Likewise, she's already keeping _me_ company."

Obviously, this means that she can't simultaneously exist in the same ten foot radius as me. I mean, hanging out with more than one person at a time? What a positively _radical_ fucking notion!

"Whatever," I grumble, dismissing Pearl with a wave. I step into my car and settle my knee on the front seat, hand already reaching for a piece of trash before I realize that she didn't supply me with a trash bag.

I groan, trudging back inside and keeping my eyes low. Despite training them on the charcoal black marks beneath me, I can still see Lapis' hands around her waist through my peripherals. Neither of them notices me, too caught up in their own devices to care. I simply have to grit my teeth and fight the urge to cry like a pussy.

Watching them was horrible through the windows of the Big Donut, and it's horrible now. I feel my chest seize as I snag the black bag from a garbage can and storm out.

I slam the door shut hard in hopes that the booming _thunk_ of the metal latch against the doorframe will encompass even a fragment of how shitty I feel right now. There's a shocked yelp from inside, paired with a scoff.

"She's uh, she's been kinda moody lately, sorry," Lapis says behind the door. "Probably needs to like, get laid or something." And then she has the audacity to laugh, and I wish the door was open so that I could slam it again.

"Here, do you mind if I talk to her?" Lapis asks. I skitter away before I hear a response, not willing to let either of them know I was eavesdropping.

I throw a handful of junk into the garbage bag just as Lapis walks out, forcing myself to stare at the new patch of exposed flooring. Lapis walks over, leaning against the side of my car and frowning.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, and I'm almost taken aback at how accusatory her tone is.

"Ha! You're asking _me_?" I sneer back, refusing to look at her. I scrape some gum wrappers from the floor of my passenger's side, stuffing them in the trashcan.

"You know what I mean," she insists. Unsurprisingly, no, I don't know what she means because _I_ wasn't the one who fucking lied to her. I suppose the universal rule of fart-logic applies here: _He who smelt it, dealt it_.

"You know," I say, gritting my teeth and trying to keep from having a full-blown tantrum, "Surprisingly, not everybody is out to get you. My car broke down at the pet store and I need to get it repaired. Now can I _please_ clean it in peace so that I can appease your-,"

"Don't you dare fucking say it," Lapis warns. I smile crookedly because she knows the string of slurs I have preheated to 300 degrees on the tip of my tongue.

" _Girlfriend_ ," I snarl lowly, complying to keep what little peace we have left.

I feel something bubble in my chest, and fight with all I can to keep it down, biting hard on the inside of my cheek. A tear nearly escapes me, but I wipe it with my coat sleeve before it can even surpass my eyelid.

"Look, I'm sorry," Lapis heaves a sigh, as if being sorry is some huge and elaborate chore. She leans forward to curl a stray piece of hair behind my ear, and I'm ashamed when I feel my heart begin to race. Those weird sensations (I think they're called feelings) pound at my ribcage and beg to be released.

"I didn't mean for this. I just didn't want to hurt your feelings or anything," Lapis explains quietly, her movements reserved because we both know that Pearl is no farther than a few yards away and we both know that we are not invincible here.

"Oh, that just makes _everything_ better! Now that I know my feelings have been so benevolently spared, I feel _fan-fucking-tastic!_ Thank you _so much_ , Lapis, for all your _wonderful_ contributions to my crippled mental state." I sneer, balling my fists, and grinding my teeth. Lapis jerks back, knitting her brows and becoming increasingly interested in her own shoelaces. My smoldering gaze cools into a mere ember.

"Look, I knew," I sigh, "I heard you on the phone with her. You called her 'babe'. Most people do not call their moms 'babe'."

"And you didn't try to stop me or anything?" Lapis knits her brow.

"You're a big girl," I tease, forcing the fraction of a grin to manifest on my face. "You can make your own choices. And you chose Pearl. I mean, even though I feel like an actual septic tank on legs, I kind of have to respect that as your choice, right?"

Lapis swallows hard, and she trails her fingers down to my jaw, tilting my chin up and leading me to lock eyes with her. Her eyes are clouded, as if she's deeply contemplating her next move. She flashes her gaze towards the garage, and then back at me. And then she dips down and smashes our lips together like we aren't in broad daylight. I'm ashamed at how easily I cave; pressing back in a needy attempt to show her even a decimal of how pathetic she makes me feel.

And then suddenly she breaks the embrace, leaving me with only the fleeting sensation of flesh upon disgusting flesh.

"You're some kind of fucking idiot," I snap, turning away.

"I'm sorry," Lapis replies listlessly, retreating to the garage so that she can pretend that I am nothing more to her than a disposable extra in the drama of her life.

She doesn't play when she goes back inside, instead leaving a deafening silence to ring in my ears as I finish clearing out the rest of the junk in my Volkswagen. When I find that I've cleaned it to a satisfactory level, I step back and wipe the sweat from my forehead, feeling something almost prideful.

Since when did my car have cup holders?

I stretch out and walk back to the garage, kicking open the door and parking myself right in the doorframe. Lapis averts my eyes, squeezing her hands into shaky fists.

"Did you need something, Peridot?" Pearl grinds out between her teeth. She casts a sideways glance towards Lapis in mild concern before tilting her gaze back in my direction.

"I finished cleaning," I announce.

"That's very nice, but I'm still not quite done," Pearl quips back, a gravelly undertone of venom in her prim voice.

"Look, I just want to feed my fucking snake, okay?" I flat-out whine, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Can you please hurry?"

"Fine," Pearl scoffs, pulling out a small screwdriver. "I'm just about finished. Give me five minutes."

I release a big sigh of relief, leaning back against the doorframe and watching her work in silence. I hate to admit it, but she seems to have a real aptitude for something besides pissing me off and referring to every teacher by 'sir' or 'ma'am' without a drop of irony. Her fingers fly under the hood as if she were a concert pianist rather than a minimum wage mechanic.

Pearl finishes in four minutes and thirty-six seconds.

"Alright, done," She says, stepping back from the car to observe her work. "Lapis, could you take this out front and tell Greg I'm done?"

Lapis obliges, eager to escape the suffocating air of animosity and tension lying thick in the atmosphere. Pearl hoists open the main garage door, moving the yellow bike carefully before allowing Lapis to drive past.

As soon as Lapis is out of our earshot, Pearl drops her shoulders and her gentle grin. She locks her jaw and glares at me, taking a deep breath before speaking up.

"Look, Peridot, there is something troubling Lapis, and I am going to be _very_ generous with my wording when I say that I think that you are the source." She says evenly, curling a lock of hair behind her ear before continuing. I fight the urge to do the same. "Now I ask you as a peer and as her partner to please, _please_ stop instigating her."

Oh, so they've transcended the mere title of girlfriends. They're _partners_ now. What a pretentious and unnecessary title to possesses.

God, I wish it was mine.

"I don't understand," I say through my teeth, locking eyes with her.

"I mean that it may be… _beneficial_ for you two to take a little break from each other. That's all. Look, I don't know what's going on right now, but something has been bothering her and she really doesn't need any added stressors in her life right now, okay? And with all this recent fighting between you two…" Pearl explains, trailing off as if she expects me to fill in the blanks.

I seethe, using every ounce of willpower I posses to keep my fist from flying into her mouth. "Fuck you," I tell her, "Fuck you. I've been her best friend since forever, okay? Don't pretend like you know her like I do."

We don't break eye contact for a solid minute, and I swear the tension between us is tangible. Eventually though, Pearl yields and averts her gaze. She accepts her loss sourly, throwing one last underhanded comment my way before retreating.

"Not all friendships are meant to last, Peridot," Pearl says icily, turning on her heel and storming away towards my car.

Damn, that girl is going to grow into one hell of a PTA mom. I flick her off as soon as she turns her back, muttering some unsavory comment under my breath.

She checks it, seemingly satisfied now that the bulk of the rubbish inside is cleared. And then she quietly dips in to check my wires.

I let my jacket pockets swallow my hands, sucking in a jagged breath. My stratus-gray eyes trace Pearl in muted fury, and I gnash my teeth together. With her head tucked so nicely under the hood, I indulge myself in the concept of the heavy hunk of metal falling on her neck. I can almost hear her spinal cord snapping.

Though for some reason, this thought doesn't amuse me nearly as much as I want it to.

"Peridot?" I turn, only to find Lapis behind me breathing the hot air of teenage scandal on my neck.

Lapis wraps her large hand around my index finger, gripping on to it like she's a child afraid of losing their parent in a crowded mall. She hangs on to me for a long time, wordlessly watching Pearl work on my car.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispers. "You deserve better."

"Doesn't everyone?" I say before I can stop myself.

Lapis casts a sad gaze towards Pearl before staring down at her shoelaces. "Yeah," she says finally. She grabs my hand and squeezes gently to remind me that change can never be enforced by spoken word alone.

And with Pearl's scathing last words still fresh in my mind, I squeeze back.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading, favoriting, following and THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 100 REVIEWS. I know it's lame to be so happy about that, but I'm honestly so proud and excited! You guys are the best!**

 **Greggy: Don't worry bro I might take a little bit, but I haven't given up yet :)**

 **Akina Akhai: Lapis' romantic tendencies are blurry- basically however you perceive it can be valid. However, I will say that her behavior is more so connected to her having deep rooted _yet-to-be-revealed_ issues rather than having a polyamorous orientation or being plain greedy. **


	11. The One Good Day

**Hey! Look who's back. I know this chapter's really... depressing, but the next one has like, a 20% chance of being better. Whoops. What can I say? Lapis is a depressing character. I tried to keep some humor in it, though. Most of my jokes are 'soft snort as you read' or miss, so take that as you will.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of sex, cheating, abusive relationship dynamics, explicit language.**

* * *

The One Good Day

I thrum my blunt fingernails against the citrus-smelling lunch table, eyes darting about for Pearl.

She isn't hard to find- her tall stature and flaming ginger hair offer her the rudimentary likeness of a candlestick. I catch her emerging from the lunch line, walking towards me with a tray of rubber food in one hand, and a stainless steel coffee canister in the other.

Despite being one of the most feminine human beings I know, she drinks coffee like a veteran construction worker- straight black and in bulk. I've seen her down entire pots of the buzzing liquid on exam days, and I've come to personal belief that her functioning bladder is one of the seven great miracles of this earth- succeeded only by tardigrades and my uncanny ability to fuck up every good thing that comes to me.

The corner of her lip twitches as she locks eyes with me and hurries to the lunch table.

Our spot in the lunchroom is an empty little half-circle at the very back of the cafeteria that's been vandalized so badly, it's become two parts teenage humor, and one part dining platform. It's honestly pretty disgusting, but since nobody bothers us back here, we tend to care less.

"Good afternoon," Pearl greets, sitting next to me and setting her tray under my nose. She uncaps her thermos, popping a mint past her lips and chasing it with a huge swig of coffee as if she's taking a daily antibiotic. The overbearing taste of the bitter drink more or less defeats the purpose of freshening one's breath with a mint, but I don't mention this.

"Hey, babe," I return with a grin, nudging the tray between us so that we can both graze as we please

Pearl accepts my nonverbal prompt to eat with a grimace, her fingers closing around an apple reluctantly like the fickle claw of a crane machine. "You certainly look cheerful today," Pearl observes before taking a small nibble from the red skin of her apple.

"What, don't I usually?" I tease, grabbing the lukewarm hamburger from our tray. I bite into it with my eyes trained on Pearl's. It's common knowledge that looking at cafeteria food while you eat it is the only thing more unappetizing than not eating at all.

"No, not lately," Pearl replies.

"How so?" My eyebrow arches slowly.

"I'm not sure how to explain it," Pearl mumbles, using her index and thumb to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. I lean into the touch instinctively, enjoying the domestic act of affection with a soft hum. "You've just seemed stressed lately, I suppose."

"Oh yeah," I roll my eyes, "I'm like, totally miserable- can't you tell?" I laugh and flash Pearl my toothiest smile for emphasis.

"Oh hush. You know I worry," Pearl huffs.

"Yeah, I know. But anyways," I change the subject through a mouthful of fake meat, "I meant to tell you earlier that Mom called me last night."

"Did she now?" Pearl asks, prompting me further hesitantly.

"Yep. She told me that she and dad are coming home next week." I can't hide the smile that grows on my face like invasive moss. Though my mom and dad aren't the best when they leave to satisfy their demanding jobs, they're practically the best parents anyone could ask for when they _are_ home.

"I'm really fucking excited," I admit, feeling my cheeks heat up. "I'm gonna show them all the new songs I learned on my guitar, and I'm gonna clean my room, and I even got some of those AV kids to film my swim meet tonight." I rattle off, my voice rising in pitch and speed with each sentence.

Pearl looks as if she's about to speak, but I interject her before she can even suck in another breath.

"God, I'm so happy," I sigh. And it's true. For once in the last two months, if I dig past the obnoxious complexity of my life, I can almost say that I'm okay.

That seems to be enough for Pearl to shut up. She bites the inside of her cheek, relinquishes whatever politely dismissive comment she had prepared for me, and kisses my forehead. "I'm glad," she murmurs in noncommittal resignation.

I'm not daunted by her obvious lack of enthusiasm- over the years I've become all but desensitized to the general public's distaste for my parent's King George style of indirect rule.

It's no secret that they aren't exactly there for me most of the time, and by now, most of the town knows about my unconventional living arrangements. I mean, a teenager skipping parent-teacher conferences every year doesn't exactly go unnoticed. It's not like I really blame anyone for noticing, though- human beings just have the natural aptitude to worry about problems that aren't theirs and children they don't clothe. Some of them even have the self-righteous arrogance to complain about _my_ life to _my_ face.

And as much as it annoys me, I always manage to hold my tongue during the constant and condescending barrage of _'Poor girl'_ s and _'The way your folks treat you ain't right'_ s. I've learned to more or less block it out by now; and as long as they don't call child services, I'll let them whine all they want.

To be honest, I don't mind the ill-seated intrusion nearly as much as I despise the pity. I know there are only good intentions, but when the elderly lady across the street starts leaving cellophane wrapped dinners out on her doorstep for me like I'm a stray cat- well that's just fucking obnoxious. I'm not some starving animal, and I don't need someone to make me dinner once a week so that they can feel as if they've done some noble public service.

Thankfully, Pearl and Peridot offer me nothing more than a dry, bitter bone to chew on when it comes to my parents.

And really- that's all a dog like me needs anyways.

Pearl snaps me out of my thoughts with a soft hum. "About your swim meet- I was thinking that I could come tonight." She smiles shyly. My heart picks up, and I feel a little like I'm asking her out for the first time all over again.

"Really?" I perk up, ducking to meet her eyes. "I thought you had work."

"I could call in sick," Pearl says, eyes gleaming. "I-I don't know- I suppose I just feel bad because I haven't been able to be there for you lately."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up, babe. It'd be totally awesome if you came to a swim meet," I say. Suddenly, something in my blank mind clicks into place, and I mentally slap myself. "And, uh, just so you know, Peridot's probably coming too," I add quickly.

Pearl tenses as soon as Peridot's name leaves my tongue, her back straightening as if her spine has been replaced with a steel rod. She squeezes her fingers around her mug, suddenly seeming very interested in an orange juice spill on the lunchroom floor.

"I'm sorry, is that a thing of yours?" She stammers, smile fading like invisible ink.

I cringe at the stiffness in her voice. "Yeah, Peridot usually drives me to my home meets. It's not really a thing, but-,"

"Oh! I-I suppose I shouldn't go then if…" She trails off, knitting her brow. I frown, noticing the way her chest is beginning to heave erratically under her crossed arms. I hurry and kiss her cheek before she starts crying.

"Hey, it's fine," I reassure her, jostling her shoulder gently and meeting her eyes. "Peridot won't mind. She'll pick you up tonight, okay?"

Pearl shakes her head. "That's not it," she murmurs, tugging away from me.

"Then what's wrong?" I press.

"I don't know. I suppose it's rather silly, but sometimes I just feel like I'm… I don't know… third wheeling in my own relationship? Does that sound crazy?" Pearl refuses to look at me, instead staring at the cap of her thermos. She screws it on and off tediously, fingers tapping at the rim.

There's a long, exhausted silence before I can remember how to talk.

"Like how?" I ask, my tone just a degree too defensive.

Pearl scoffs. "How? All you ever do is worry about Peridot! You talk about her constantly, you're always over her house, and you still obsess over her even though it's so obvious that all she does is give you trouble!" Pearl's voice rises steadily, and we attract a few eyes from neighboring tables. I flip them all off and tell them to mind their own fucking business before I send them to the nurse unconscious.

"I'm sorry," I growl, unwilling to argue. "But can you please stop making a fucking scene about it?"

"Yeah, whatever," Pearl rolls her eyes. She looks me over and snorts, "Y'know, sometimes I wonder if you even care about me anymore." She breathes out the ghost of a humorless laugh and tries to hide the tears pricking in her eyes.

Something tells me that she's had this on her mind for a while, and that's the thought that stabs my lungs with guilt until they deflate.

I don't hold her hand in the extended silence she offers me, even though I know I should. It would seem too purposeful, too insincere. So instead, I set my food down and silently urge Pearl to eat some more, pushing the tray in front of her. Pearl rejects it, whispering that she really isn't hungry.

"Did you sleep last night?" I ask suddenly, staring at the bags beneath her eyes. Pearl shakes her head.

"No. Look, forget about what I said, okay? I'm just tired. I'll see you tonight." She takes a long, tired drink of her coffee, shivering slightly as it hits her bloodstream. "I love you, okay?" Pearl whispers, and my heart breaks as she does so, because I know that if I say it back, I'll only hurt her more in the long run.

"You too," I exhale, crossing my arms on the table and resting my head upon them. "Do you want me to take up the tray?"

Pearl shakes her head in a quick jerky motion and stands up, grabbing the tray and shuffling off. When she comes back, we sit in somber silence and I lose the fight between my mind and the black static invading it.

All I wanted was to have one good day.

* * *

Peridot's car putters into my driveway five minutes after the sun goes down. I zip up my swim-team jacket and tighten my fingers around the straps of my duffel bag. The sound of Peridot's car horn blaring through the walls of my house makes me groan.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I yell, hurrying out the door. I nearly fall on my face as I rush to shut her up. Thankfully, Peridot has the grand decency to make sure I'm not hurt before breaking into a playfully mean-spirited laugh.

Peridot smirks in amusement, poking her head out the driver's side window. "I'm glad you're so eager to come for me, Lazuli," she laughs, getting out and helping me stuff my bag into the trunk.

"Go suck a dick," I shoot back, sticking out my tongue.

"Oral sex. How positively _threatening,"_ Peridot snickers, opening my door for me and shuffling around to the driver's side.

"Yeah, and I hope you choke on it, too." I duck inside, stretching out my legs over the freshly revealed floor mats.

Since Pearl forced her to clean her car, she's kept it surprisingly in order. And though I know it's only a matter of time before it overflows with trash and wrappers again, I'll take what I can get.

"I suddenly regret agreeing to drive you," Peridot says as she settles into the front seat.

She kicks up the heater and snuggles into a parachute coat at least two sizes too big for her because, as a self-proclaimed reptile, the cold is a demon that she must vanquish under three layers of over shirts.

"You look like that kid from a Christmas Story," I tell her, scowling. My forehead is already starting to sweat.

Peridot rolls her eyes and knocks the heat down by a generous two degrees. "Shut up. It's fucking freezing outside," she complains.

"Whatever you say," I grin.

Peridot grumbles something about me being a little shit before shifting her car into reverse and pulling out of my driveway.

I'm quiet for a moment, trying to decide how I'll bring up Pearl. Because I'm a total idiot, I completely avoided telling her about our little change in plans, and for some reason I don't think "hey wouldn't it be fun if you and my girlfriend who I'm cheating on with you got in the same car together?" will cut it.

"Anyways," I begin tentatively, fingers twitching , "would it be okay if you picked up Pearl along the way?"

The car jerks to a stop as Peridot slams on the breaks. Her eyes stretch wide like elastic bands, and her jaw hangs slack in incredulous rage. _"Excuse me?"_ Peridot squeaks, her voice soaring up to an inhuman octave. I flinch, folding a phantom tail behind my legs.

"I was just, like, wondering," I whimper, raising my hands in defense. "Chill."

Peridot looks like she's about to have a tantrum. Her lower lip quivers, and her shoulders stiffen. "I swear to god, you better be fucking with me," she growls behind clenched teeth.

"She was like, crying! I couldn't just say no," I reason, massaging my temples roughly. "Please, Peridot- I'm begging you." Peridot seems to accept my desperation, albeit with visible distaste. She shakes her head and restarts her car.

"You're fucking whipped," Peridot snaps, driving us to the boardwalk without another word.

When we arrive at the gated road leading to Pearl's house, she's already waiting for us. Pearl waves timidly, wrapping her hands around her arms and shivering. She's hardly wearing more than a thin white blouse and jeans, and while she looks beautiful, she can't be anything above freezing. Peridot parks on the road, unlocking the doors and casting one last venomous glare towards me.

"Don't you dare fucking kiss her. Don't you dare," she mouths as Pearl slips into the back seat. I nod, looking out my window and trying not to let the acid in my stomach burn through my throat.

"Hello, Peridot. Thank you for driving me," Pearl greets her with a note of detached cordiality. It's the same falsely polite voice she uses to address particularly obnoxious costumers at her job. Peridot rolls her eyes and sneers, her nose scrunching up as if she smells something familiar.

"Hurry up and get buckled. We're late now because of you," Peridot barks her orders like a drill sergeant, her eyes trained on the road. I sink in my seat, wishing I could phase through the faux leather and lay flat on the road like a dead raccoon or something.

You know it gets bad when you envy the fortune of roadkill.

Pearl makes a low rumbling sound in the back of her throat, but does as she's told. At least she looks warm now. She crosses her arms, checks her phone, and continues to check it for the next ten minutes. I avoid all eye contact.

Eventually, we reach the high school. Peridot pulls into the parking lot and rips her keys from the ignition. She jams her hands into her pockets and steps out, grabbing my bag. She opens my door and stares at me as if she expects me to be thankful.

"I'm sorry," I whisper as I take her hand and help myself out.

Peridot slams my duffel bag into my chest. "Because that's new," She snarls lowly, shuffling away so that Pearl can steal her place besides me.

Pearl clings to my elbow as we make our way to the door, and I can hear Peridot grunt in disgust as she lags behind us.

Strangely, I've always found school infinitely more welcoming at night- it's like a vampire that only awakens when the sun goes down. As we push past the huge glass doors of the athletics building, the white lights warm my skin, and I get the incredible urge to sprint down the empty halls. I somehow repress my desires and turn the other way.

I head to the gym, shaking Pearl from my arm and taking a shy glance at the locker rooms.

"Uh, so I'm going to go back and get ready. You can follow Peridot to the bleachers, okay?" I say, shoving my hands into my pockets like my joints are made of wood.

"Sounds wonderful," Pearl smiles back, "Do well, baby."

And suddenly, she's smashing our lips together, one delicate hand trapping the back of my head, and the other meeting my hips. I'm too frozen to move for a moment, and it's all I can do to keep from lashing out blindly. Pearl squeezes me tightly, flicks her tongue across my lower lip, and then breaks the embrace, hands still holding my body flush to hers.

I manage to dig my wits from the recesses of my mind and pull back, shocked. "What was that?" I ask, fingers brushing my now-swollen lips.

"Just for good luck," Pearl says beneath a sprouting frown. "Sorry."

"It's… fine. Uh, I'm gonna go back now," I choke out. "Peridot will…" I trail off, noticing suddenly that she's absent from my view.

I turn my head and see her storming down the halls and towards the bleacher access doors. She walks as if her shoes are made of lead.

"You better go after her," I sigh.

Pearl nods solemnly, frowning as if she's waiting for me to say something else. After a long period of soul-crushing silence, she relents and turns on her heel without a word. Her shoes click on the tiled floors, booming in my ears as they echo down the hallway.

Through my exhaustion, I force a smile and descend into the locker room, fumbling with my phone and trying to find our team's pre-game 'hype playlist'. It takes me a long time because I'm shaking so badly- I can hardly hold my phone steady. After a few breaths to even out my grip, my speakers boom the opening bits to _Eye of the Tiger._

Heads tilt up expectantly as I walk into the changing room, some faces amused, others annoyed. I kill the stone of dread settled in the pit of my gut and stand up on the bench. I have work to do, after all. No quivering hands can change that.

"Alright ladies!" I yell, "Who's gonna win tonight?"

Despite being told on multiple occasions that my pregame rallies are both unnecessary and disruptive (as well as freakishly cultish), I find them to be a bit of a tradition. A few of my friends pound on the lockers and chant, "We are, we are, we are!"

The acoustics in the girl's locker rooms can rival a high-budget recording studio, and we end up drowning out the small speakers on my phone within seconds. My grin slowly becomes more and more effortless, and as Survivor belts out the chorus, I sing along. My voice isn't bad enough for anyone to mind much, and slowly, everyone goes back to getting ready. A few of my teammates clap me on the shoulder and ask me if I'm all set for my one-hundred lap marathon. I tell them that I am, and brag that I could swim it with my hands tied behind my back and still come in first place if I wanted to.

Another girl tells me that if I don't shut up, she _will_ tie my hands behind my back. I just laugh.

After all, that's the least of my worries.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, reviewed, or even read! I hope you continue to motivate me! And thank you to all the adorable folks who have sent me sweet messages on Tumblr!**


	12. I Canoodle with the Enemy

**Wow I haven't had an update this quick since the summer. Anyways, I've done a lot of building up for this chapter, and the foreshadowing in previous chapters was intentionally minuscule and deliberate.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Swearing, Underage use of substance, Mild sexual situations, Disassociation**

* * *

I Canoodle with the Enemy

I don't cry. In fact, I'm power-walking the fuck out of there as soon as Pearl cups the back of Lapis' head because I'm not stupid, and I know how chronology works. First, Pearl will hold her, second, she will kiss her, and third, Lapis will ultimately forget the one fucking thing I asked of her and kiss back.

And if I had to see that, I probably would cry.

I keep my hands jammed in my pockets to conceal the fact that they're clenched hard enough to make my knuckles even paler. It's been a total of twenty minutes, and I already want to go home. Saying I agreed to this would be stretch; it was more like I was forcefully compelled.

Of course, whether or not I gave my affirmative consent doesn't really matter now, because Pearl obviously doesn't intend to leave, and Lapis obviously doesn't intend to cater to my distaste.

But by this point, I'm hardly surprised.

I hear the clacking of Pearl's flats behind me and fight the urge to walk even faster.

"You didn't have to run off like that," Pearl huffs, slowing to my brisk tempo as she catches up with me. She sweeps her bangs back into elegant perfection, pointing her chin up in the deliberate show of poise and 'I'm-better-than-you' etiquette that all girls like her seem to posses.

I wonder idly if Lapis likes girls like that- girls who do nice stuff with their hair and always smell like delicate perfume instead of incense. Girls that can make her feel needed when she lends them her jacket, or girls like Pearl who wear skirts that she can admire while she touches their thigh. And suddenly I feel kind of strange, because I've never been like that.

And I've never heard of a girl like Lapis looking at a girl like me. Maybe she wants something pretty? I can do that. I could be pretty.

"Where are the stands?" Pearl asks suddenly, snapping me from my thoughts. For once, I don't mind the intrusion.

"Down this hall, up some stairs," I say curtly. "You know, on the door that says BLEACHER ACCESS in big blue letters. It's hard to miss."

Pearl rolls her eyes at my harsh tone, but says nothing else.

Because our school's swimming department is so extravagantly huge, the architects had to put the bleacher area on a completely different floor. And due to the concerning amount of kids who used to sneak up there during the day to drink vodka from their Beach City Pride bottles, the access doors are usually on complete lockdown. But on game nights, they stay propped wide open.

It's hardly a loss, especially because now they just have to drink their thinly disguised alcohol in class. It's always easy to tell who's having a rough morning- you can see them chew tic-tacs before every sentence they speak to mask the reek of booze on their lips.

I lead Pearl to the bleacher doors and swing the heavy slab of wood open. As I climb the row of stairs, I choke on the overwhelming scent of chlorine. Lapis smells of it constantly, and the pungent scent's been all but engrained into my system. You'd think I'd be desensitized to it by now, but even several years of exposure can't stop it from making me sick.

As late as we are, the available seats have dwindled to a few bare patches in the middle and back. The front-most row is completely secured by tired looking mothers and every other occupied seat behind it houses a victim of equal caliber.

" _Fantastic_ ," I snarl under my breath, squirming past a crowd of knees. Some stand to allow me access, while the more stubborn of them stay rigidly still, leaving me to climb over them like hurdles.

Of course, they part like the goddamn red sea for Pearl, who murmurs a polite, "Excuse me, please, and sorry for my friend," to every person she passes.

I slump down on the bench, checking my phone for the time. It's nearly ten minutes before the announcer's voice will boom over the loudspeakers in the unintelligible fuzz of a school sound system's budget, so I jam my headphones into my ears to enjoy a quick moment of peace.

I curse Sadie, because the first song that comes up when I hit shuffle belongs to Taylor Swift, and even worse, I have no intention to change it. I notice Pearl staring at my phone screen, her eyes betraying the look of dumbfounded curiosity. I glare at her and lower the brightness on the backlight.

"You listen to country?" Pearl laughs a bit, although whether it's mean spirited, I can't tell.

"No, I just thought I'd take a little break from the sounds of screaming children that I usually listen to," I grind my teeth, forcing a sardonic grin.

"You know, it's doesn't make you any less _edgy_ if you're polite once in a while," Pearl scoffs, her phantom feathers fluffing up.

I roll my eyes and gesture to my body, hoping to emphasize the utter sloppiness of my appearance. "Yeah, because I totally give a shit about my image," I retort, disheveling my own hair.

I guess can see why Lapis wouldn't want a girl like me. There's really nothing sexy or cute about someone who only showers every other day and wears clothes solely for comfort. But because I'm trying to make a point to Pearl about how much I'm totally _not_ caring, I try to keep this from plaguing my mind.

We sit for a while until our tense silence is rudely interrupted by the announcer. I sigh and crank my headphones up even higher. His fuzzed voice still permeates my barrier of drum loops and chord progressions, but if I focus hard on the lyrics, I can will myself to ignore him.

I peer down over the stands to watch Lapis lead out the girl's swim team. The meets are a co-ed, but for certain events, they spilt the team up based upon gender.

Lapis smiles broadly up at the stands, her eyes searching between Pearl, myself, and AV club kids who she got to record her event. The fingers on her left hand twitch sporadically as they always do before competitions. It took me years to realize that she was positioning her hand deliberately.

"What's she doing?" Pearl asks, leaning forward for a better view. I wonder if my air of disgust with her hasn't been made clear enough, because she keeps insisting on talking to me no matter how much I swear and sneer.

"Practicing her chord shapes," I murmur absently, giving in to her persistence. I lose myself in her hand as I try to transcribe the song she's almost certainly playing in her head. "Nervous habit," I clarify because I know Pearl is still staring at me with that blank look of confusion she wears so well.

"That's so… strange," Pearl says, offering a small smile and a distant air of affection in her tone that makes me want to retch.

I watch most of the swim meet with glazed eyes, miming the hunched over hand-on-chin expression of the other spectators. I've never been much into sports, but I figure that between competitive swimming and watching paint dry- at least the drying paint can accomplish something.

Lapis' event goes last, offering me the much needed opportunity to catch up on some sleep. I take it eagerly, crossing my arms over my knees and resting my head atop them. I pull out one headphone so that I can listen to the announcer as I drift. It seems like I never fall asleep, but when I open my eyes again, thirty minutes have passed.

I pull myself up and stretch out, hardly feeling more rested than I had before. I inhale sharply through my nose and yawn, stopping short when I realize that there's an empty space next to me.

In the vacancy, there's a hastily scrawled note that reads:

 _Went outside for some fresh air. Will be back shortly. -Pearl_

I shrug and continue watching the match. About twenty more minutes pass before I start to wonder what she could possibly be doing. The announcer calls a ten minute intermission before the final event, and I'm compelled to stand. I pocket Pearl's note and wordlessly shove myself past the long row of legs once more.

Something familiar pulls me to the main entrance, and I'm not sure what it is. It's not as if I honestly care what Pearl does, but rather, I can tell that she's doing _something_. Perhaps what draws me to push through the glass doors is nothing more than muted curiosity.

The air outside is crisp and dry, and it almost tastes like winter. There's no wind, but the atmosphere seems to be in a perpetual state of frozen chill anyways. I breathe deeply, my cheeks feeling shallow as I hungrily consume the fresh air around me.

A few cars drive about on the road across from the school, highlighted only by the dull shine of orange streetlights glinting against their metal bodies. It's so silent that I can hear the sound of their rubber wheels crunching the gravel beneath them.

I ease the door shut and step out, adjusting my collar higher up my neck and shrinking into my coat. I turn the corner and somehow, I find what it is I was looking for.

She's leaning up the rough brick wall of the school building, shivering and balancing a small burning stick between her pink lips. Her chest rises, and she pulls the flame away before exhaling a smoky cloud too thick to be acquitted to the frost. She seems to relax as it dissolves, sighing, and again balancing the stick between her teeth.

"Pearl?" I blurt before I can stop myself.

She yelps and drops the flaming thing she cradled so preciously only moments ago, stamping it out under her shoe and dragging it across the concrete. It leaves a familiar ashy swipe as the glow dies out on the stone-cold ground.

We don't say anything for a moment, but there's an unspoken communication between our locked eyes. And because of how wide hers have become, I know that I was not supposed to see this.

"Pearl?" I ask again, quieter this time.

Pearl stiffly crosses her arms and scowls, drawing up her lip to reveal a primal set of teeth. It's almost funny to see her so guarded and scared, but I can't bring myself to laugh or even to sneer.

"What," She demands.

"Were you just-," I ask, glancing down at the nicotine she spread over the ground like butter on toast.

"That's hardly your business," she growls, coughing the last of her cigarette smoke into her shivering arms. "Y'know, I thought I told you to stay away from her."

"And I told you to fuck off," I shoot back without a hitch.

I want to run back into the warm embrace of the school building and leave Pearl to freeze, but my feet drag me closer instead. I inch over to her as if she's a frightened animal, leaning on the bricks next to her, and trying to calm my upset stomach as I stare at our shoes.

How strange- from the sock down, we almost look like the same person.

I release a caged breath and watch the thin mist as it vanishes. "Does Lapis know?" I ask after a tense silence. It's the type of silence that immediately follows telling your parents that you like girls, or telling a lover that you're better off as friends. It's not cruel, but that doesn't make it comfortable.

"Again, that's none of your business," Pearl murmurs, although there's no real heat behind her words. She has no fire right now, as evidenced by how violently she's shivering.

By some horrible impulse, I wrap my fingers around the hem of my coat and tug at it. Slowly, I shed it, allowing goose bumps to migrate onto my bare arms in its place. I ignore Pearl's questioning look as I hold the clump of fabric out to her.

"Thank you, but no thank you. I don't need your pity," Pearl snaps, though her voice shakes, and I can see that she's eyeing my warm overcoat with desire.

"Not pity," I frown, "Just courtesy. It doesn't take a genius to understand." I grit my teeth, urging Pearl to take my coat before I regret my generosity. Pearl stares at me for a long moment, possibly wondering what poisons I laced into the fabric. It takes her all of thirty seconds to give in and pull the jacket over her head.

Even though it's loose on me, the sleeves hardly reach past Pearl's forearms, and if she arched her back, the hem would ride up her stomach. Still, she looks grateful enough.

"Thank you. See? It's not so hard to be nice," Pearl teases, and I roll my eyes, laughing a little just to make sure I still know how to.

I give into the feeling I've been repressing for so long. I don't know if there's a word for it, but it's not hate. It's the opposite of hate- the feeling of wanting to hate, but not being able to. It's a robot's first emotion, and maybe it's called empathy, but I can't tell for sure.

"And Peridot?" Pearl mumbles again. I look up and tilt my head in a nonverbal prompt for her to continue.

"Please don't tell Lapis," Pearl's voice is some mixture of whispering and begging, and I hate to say it, but I feel bad for her. She looks like one of those sad puppies they use to guilt trip people into donating to local shelters. If I listen hard enough, I can almost hear Sarah McLachlan sing _In the Arms of an Angel_ among the cars driving past.

I know I could take this chance to ruin something that I've been wanting gone since forever, but something stops me from crossing my fingers behind my back. I frown, looking up at the dusky sky. The stars have always served to relax me in the past, but tonight, thick clouds block them from view. I'm not upset- I suppose even stars need a break from being pretty sometimes.

"Will she be mad?" I ask, the hesitance in my voice eating my resolve.

Pearl takes a long breath and nods, looking down. "She'd be livid. She thinks I quit in seventh grade." She furrows her brow. "I know it's pathetic," she whispers, her voice cracking, "But I'm constantly stressed and _nervous_ and sometimes I just need this to relax and feel like a regular human being again. It's such a disgusting habit," Pearl chuckles humorlessly, "Look, I know you don't like me, and I know we're not friends, but please, _please_ , don't tell her."

Pearl looks like she's about to cry, and suddenly, I understand why Lapis had given into her in the first place.

"I won't," I promise, rubbing my arms to generate some friction against them. It's a promise I don't think I could ever imagine myself making, and somehow, I think the air around me gets that much warmer.

Pearl wraps her arms around me suddenly, bringing me tight against her. I feel her chest hiccup against mine, and reluctantly hug her back. God, she's so frail. I feel like if I squeezed tight enough, I'd shatter her ribcage. It's all I can do to hold her delicately.

"Thank you," she whispers as she finally pulls away. Her breath is a musky concoction of nicotine and cotton, masked only thinly by the dull sting of a breath mint.

I don't say another word to her as we retreat back into the building, but as we walk side-by-side, I notice that our shoulders are closer than they were only an hour before.

By the time we hurry back to our spots, Lapis' event has already begun. I can see the AV kids adjusting the focus on their camera, buzzing about excitedly. I cross my arms and lean down, watching the swimmers for the first time with any interest. My eyes widen when I see her.

Lapis is trailing behind a boy from the other school's team, and she looks like she's laboring to keep up, which is a disarming sight for anyone who knows her. Lapis' specialty rests in endurance, and it's unusual to see her so beaten after only a few laps.

I grit my teeth, "She's losing," I whisper.

Pearl knits her brow and folds her hands over her lips as if she's praying.

I wait for her to pull through, like she always does, but by lap 75, she's still falling behind, now by a lap and a half. Pearl whispers a string of unintelligible pleas under her breath, eyes following Lapis helplessly. I don't know if she knows how important this is, but Lapis _can't_ lose. Not with AV club filming her. Not with her parents' pride on the line.

In an act of rash spontaneity, I shove past the women sitting in front of me. They give me dirty looks and make a rude comment about what an ill-mannered lady I am ("Goodness, were you raised by heathens?!"). Ignoring them, I grip the rails at the edge of the bleachers and lean over it, cupping my mouth with my hands.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! SWIM, YOU IDIOT!" I roar as soon as I see her come up for a breath. My voice bounces off the walls like a rubber ball, and though I can't be sure that Lapis is listening, I swear, she starts closing the distance.

By lap 90, she's in front of the boy, sending riptides of water behind her, and clearing the pool as if she's flying. I find myself cheering her on loudly, and I know I'll need a cough drop when I get home, but for now, I don't care. Finally, she's on lap 99, and she's ahead of the boy by a good half length. She puts on a burst of speed for the home stretch, muscles quivering as she overexerts them to power through the finish.

Lapis collides against the wall and her timer stops. It's nowhere near her best, but it doesn't matter, because it's still lower than her opponents'. He finishes a wide five seconds after her, and she smiles cheekily at him as he comes up for air.

I grin one last time and retreat to my seat, grabbing Pearl. "C'mon," I say, "Let's go before it gets too crowded."

Pearl nods silently and follows me out, taking off my coat and handing it back to me. It smells like her perfume, and I decide that I'd rather not wear it now.

We wait in the main hall for a good fifteen minutes before Lapis comes bursting out of the locker room doors with a flash drive in her hand and a smile on her face. Her phone blasts Queen, belting out the chorus to _We are the Champions_ as she rushes up to me and nearly tackles me.

"You cheered!" Lapis says in happy disbelief.

I blush and look down, smiling with my teeth. "Oh, you must be misunderstood. I was cheering for the other guy," I say with a playful jab to her side. She releases me with a squeak.

"You're such a fucking loser," Lapis shakes her head.

I go to retort, but I'm interrupted by Pearl, who links her fingers with Lapis' and beams. "You were fantastic!" she grins, and I realize that we've gone back to being enemies. I wonder what we'd be if Lapis didn't exist.

Maybe we'd be friends. The thought amuses me.

"I'm the master, I know," Lapis gloats, walking outside with us in tow.

I unlock my car, frowning just a bit when Lapis crawls into the back with Pearl.

"Would you like to come over tonight?" I hear Pearl whisper in Lapis' ear. My stomach drops like the rollercoaster I've been going up on for the past hour has finally hit its peak. I feel sick, but I don't mention it. I just shift my car into first and click on the radio.

Somehow, the universe decides that I've been kicked in the gut long enough to deserve one good thing.

"Nah, maybe another night. I'm kind of tired," Lapis says apologetically, smiling despite.

Pearl looks like she's about to protest, but she catches my eye in the rearview mirror and stops. I don't know if she thinks I'm trying to blackmail her, but I hope she knows I'm not. You could say I'm taking the high road, but honestly? I'm just sick of trying.

I park outside Pearl's gate and turn away as they hug goodbye. Pearl thanks me again for driving, and this time, I think she's genuine.

As soon as we're back in second gear, Lapis speaks up.

"There's something different about you tonight, Peri," she observes, admiring a sloppy clump of hair that's fallen over my eye. "I like it." She brushes it back and I swear, I'm going to need to pull over because she's making my hands sweat, and that's gotta be some kind of safety violation.

"I-interesting," I stammer. I clear my throat obnoxiously and cough. "So am I taking you home?"

Lapis shakes her head, "Don't want to. Can I stay at your place?"

And something in my heart fucking flies out of its cage because Lapis Lazuli just chose me over Pearl. It's a stupid victory, and maybe she just wants to get back into our tradition of sleeping over after swim meets, but it makes me smile. I'm glad to take us home.

We make it to my house ten minutes past ten and hurry up to my room after a short greeting to my parents. Among the rest of our town, they know about Lapis' situation and have expressly offered her the privilege to stay over whenever she wants, no questions asked.

Lapis takes the opportunity whenever she can, and by now, we even have a separate toothbrush for her.

As soon as we get into my room, Lapis flops down on my bed and stretches. I raise my brow and put my hands on my hips.

"Uh-uh, No way," I tell her, grabbing her arms and yanking her off. Lapis yelps, rolling off and falling on the floor. "You're taking a shower."

"Aw, come on," Lapis whines. "I'm not that bad."

I'd believe her if I couldn't smell the chlorine on her skin from three feet away.

"Nope. I know bathing is a horrendously difficult task, but you smell disgusting. Take a shower," I assert, crossing my arms and leaning on one leg. I have the perfect stance of an angry girlfriend, and Lapis seems to recognize this. She laughs a little before agreeing, retreating into my bathroom.

It takes a moment, but I eventually hear the rush of a shower echo across the hall and lean back, refreshing my social media feed and chewing thoughtlessly on my fingers. My phone buzzes in my hand and a banner goes across the top with a message notification. I click it, readjusting the crooked glasses on my face to read it.

 **Pearl:** _Did Lapis make it home safely? She's not answering my texts._

I bite my lip, feeling bile rise in my throat. I type with shaky, unsure thumbs.

 **Me:** _ye s_

 **Me:** _yes*_

 **Pearl:** _Good. And thank you again._

She doesn't specify what she's thanking me for, but I know. I can imagine her skinny fingers reaching for the reason of her gratitude now, lighting it ablaze and setting it to her tongue to finish where the last one was cut off. And it's weird because she trusts me with it.

But really, what choice does she have? If she can't trust me with her cigarettes, then what's stopping me from blowing the smoke back into her face?

Stomach acid chews at the lining of my gut, threatening to spill over into my intestines. No matter how warm my room is, I feel inexplicably cold. And the only word to describe this discomfort is the feeling that follows empathy by nature.

It's guilt.

But it's past my mind as soon as Lapis strolls back into my room, skin raw from the hot water. Her short, fluffy hair lays flat at her ears, and she looks ready to pass out. Lapis throws her swimsuit in her bag and tosses it at the foot of my bed.

"Do I have permission to lay on your bed now?" Lapis asks with a smirk.

"You may," I say, tucking my phone away with one last quick two-letter response to Pearl.

 **Me:** _ok_

Lapis crashes on my bed, throwing her arms around my midsection and taking me down with her. She kisses up my shoulder and collar affectionately, pausing at my throat.

"Thank you for cheering tonight," she murmurs into my skin. Her breath tickles my neck and I end up cringing into it awkwardly.

"N-no problem," I say. "You were really sucking out there. Someone had to do it."

Lapis laughs softly, propping herself up on her elbows. Her forearms straddle my head, and my eyes go wide as I stare into hers. They almost look a different shade of blue in this light.

"I'm sorry about Pearl," Lapis mumbles, dipping her head and pressing our foreheads together.

"It's okay," I say, and I'm honest. But Lapis simply shakes her head, angling her face and pressing her lips to mine.

"It's not," Lapis insists, pulling away. "And I wanna make it up to you."

I don't know what making it up might include, but if the glint in Lapis' eye is anything to go off of, it's _definitely_ something I could entertain.

I bite my tongue as Lapis cradles my hips with her legs, bringing me into another kiss. It's deep, and uninhibited, and for once, it doesn't feel like she's trying to shove me out of sight. She's not stuffing me under a car's dashboard, or constantly breaking contact to look for prying eyes- she's just holding me.

God she's fucking _holding_ me. I only now notice that her hands have drifted to my jaw, and I take delight in how warm they are. The calluses decorating her fingertips scratch behind my ear pleasantly.

Somewhere along this embrace, I realize that I've done absolutely nothing to reciprocate. Feeling a bit like a dead fish, I rest one hand on her back and the other at the nape of her neck. I trail my fingernails up and down her spine, eliciting a needy whine that passes through her lips like a distasteful joke.

Lapis blushes and clamps her mouth shut, her eyes shooting open. "W-what?" She asks when she notices that I'm snickering.

"Good god, is your entire back an erogenous zone?" I ask, marveling at the sheer redness of her cheeks.

"N-no!" She snaps, looking away with fluster. "Just my upper back. Between my shoulder blades."

My interest piqued, I experimentally drag my fingernails up her spine once again, adding pressure as I come to the little valley between her shoulders. Lapis' breath shakes as I do so, though she holds any embarrassing noises back with grit teeth.

"How the hell did you even find this out?" I ask, drumming my fingers against the sensitive spot playfully.

Lapis bites her lip, and I can feel her left hand twitch. "So there was this girl on the swim team who liked to freak people out by running her nails up their backs when they weren't paying attention."

"Oh my god," I say, the beginnings of a laugh already manifesting my chest.

"God, Peridot. I fucking _moaned_. Like, it wasn't one of those tiny squeaks people can brush off as surprise- that shit was a full-on A-list porn star moan from the depths of _hell_ ," Lapis groans, burying her head into the crook of my neck as I let loose a barrage of loud barking laughs.

"Do I get to hear it?" I ask teasingly. Lapis shakes her head with a grimace. She pulls back for a moment, her eyes clouded as if she's reliving a traumatically humiliating memory.

"Never," Lapis says plainly before ducking down to kiss me again.

I snicker, easing my cold hands under her shirt. She shivers and suddenly goes very quiet, but I hardly notice. I'm too busy tracing the ridges of her ribcage with my blunt nails. Lapis kisses me feverishly, humming every now and then to tell me I'm doing something right.

But there's something's off about the way she's rocking her hips against mine and whining into my ear. Her sounds of pleasure seem almost choked, as if she's forcing them out of her throat, and her gyrations are rigid and awkwardly measured as if she's focusing on making the motions believable rather than simply letting them happen.

"Are you okay?" I ask, tilting my head so that I can lock our eyes.

"What? I'm fine. You're doing good," she says monotonously. Though she tries to convince me (or maybe herself) that she's into this, her eyes betray nothing but dull detachment. It freaks me out, and for a moment, I wonder what robot stole my best friend's skin and decided to walk around in it.

Still, I reluctantly continue, hiking her shirt up even further. She backs into my hand, as if to coax me to pull it the rest of the way. Her fingers inch towards my waistband, rubbing aggressive circles into the sensitive ridge of my hipbone. I roll my body into her hand subconsciously, a stuttering whimper leaving me.

I exhale heavily, trying to ignore the dead look in her eyes as I tug her shirt over her head. I freeze as soon as I see the neon green fabric covering her chest.

"You're fucking kidding me," I say, staring right into the bulging cartoon eyes of my frog bra.

Lapis shakes out of whatever trance she put herself in and offers me a goofy grin that tells me that she's again back in her own body. "What?" She asks. "The frog bra is a _total_ panty-dropper."

"The words 'frog bra' and 'panty-dropper' should not legally be allowed to be in a sentence unless they're interjected by 'is not'," I say, pushing her off of me playfully and kissing her cheek in a chaste attempt to lighten our previous session.

"Whatever," Lapis laughs. "Do you want to go back to what we were doing?"

I do, honestly. But because I can't get the broken look in Lapis' eyes as she faked a moan out of my head, I decline.

"No. The frog bra ruined it. I hope you're happy- now put your shirt back on before I punch you in the throat," I say, unceremoniously slapping her with her discarded clothing.

Lapis snags it and rolls her eyes. She slips back into her clothes, and her shoulders drop in visible comfort. She kisses the underside of my jaw and wraps her arms around my neck, and for a bittersweet moment, it almost feels like we're a real couple, because everything about this simply feels so _natural_. We lie down, her head on my chest and her arms around my neck. I let her drift off as I go back to distracting myself with my phone.

"'m sorry," Lapis slurs suddenly as she falls in and out of consciousness. She's struggling to stay awake, blinking with effort and trying to read my phone screen as I scroll through funny photos on the internet.

"For what?" I ask, tilting my head away from her so that I can watch her fight sleep. It's a rather amusing sight.

"Jus' sorry," Lapis replies. I feel her grip tighten for a moment before she loosens it and closes her eyes for good. "But this s'kinda nice too, right?"

I smile with my teeth. "Yeah," I say, snorting. "It is."

* * *

 **Again, thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed! Y'all are awesome. Pat yourselves on the back. Yeah, just like that.**


	13. She Wears Short Skirts

**Boy oh boy look who's back? Me. Anyways this chapter was pretty rough for a number of reasons- but I think the hardest thing was trying to nail the character interactions. Because, you know, Lars has to be an inappropriate asshole, Peridot has to be sarcastic and bitter, Lapis has to be cold and uninviting. And when you mix all of that up and force them to interact under tense circumstances, it gets a little tricky.**

 **I think I got it down to as good as I can to the best of my current abilities, which unfortunately meant I had to edit out a LOT of the really fluffy stuff to stay in character (esp Peridot's lines oh my god like with Lapis you can be a little cheesy and romantic but Peridot is just a big spit in the face to that kind of stuff.)**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: HEAVY CONTENT AHEAD, AS WELL AS SOME 'M' RATED CONTENT. ALSO, Excessive Swearing, Language that can be perceived as offensive, Detailed description of an anxiety/panic attack, Sexual content, Disassociation, suicidal idealization**

 **It only gets worse from here on out guys. Read at your own risk.**

* * *

She Wears Short Skirts; Peridot Wears Funky Fuschia Lip Gloss

Lars isn't good at talking.

Or maybe he is, and I'm just not a good conversation partner. Either way, we haven't talked past cordial formalities since we became stranded and starved in the middle of the mall's food court. Basically, the extent of our budding friendship has gone as follows:

Me: Hi.

Lars: Yo.

Me: You good?

Lars: Yeah, man.

Me: Nice.

Lars: Yeah.

Look, when I agreed to go to the mall with Peridot, being stuck with her weird friend was _not_ what I intended to do. Apparently, Sadie had some private things to attend to and simply _had_ to drag Peridot with her to god-knows-what-store to do god-knows-what-things.

There's a silver lining to it, though. I get to jam in some more forced, moderately invasive questions to Lars in their absence.

Me: What's your favorite subject in school?

Lars: Dropped out.

Me: So what do you want to do when you're older?

Lars: Dunno, man. You?

Me: Same.

My hair's still damp from morning swim practice, and my body's too sore to overexert, so we're pretty anchored to the chairs and tables unless Lars can manage to smuggle me a power scooter. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind much- his own willing mobility has been generally confined to the food sample trays. Neither of us actually brought money for anything to eat, so we figured we could make do like vagabonds by swallowing our pride and accepting the free handouts.

It's not really working- I'm still clutching my stomach by my seventh toothpick, and I'm developing the concerning desire to eat the sliver of wood just to have something in my system.

Lars groans and runs his fingers through his short ringlets of fire-truck red hair. "You sure you don't got money? I thought your family was s'posed to be rich or something."

"I didn't bring my card," I shrug.

"Shit man, who goes to the mall without money?"

"You? Plus, I didn't even want to go out today. Peridot just sort of dragged me along. And now I'm stuck here," I scrunch my nose up in distaste. My expression melts into a grin as Lars flicks me off.

"C'mon, babe. Am I really that bad?" Lars smirks, ducking down and shoving his nose three inches from mine. I roll my eyes, unimpressed. To be frank, I'd mind the distance more if I didn't think my fist could meet his face faster than my lips.

"I've got a girlfriend, asshole. And don't test her- she can probably kick your ass with high-heels on," I threaten loosely, jamming my thumb into his sternum and shoving him away from me. Lars curses and rubs his chest delicately.

"Since when does Peridot wear heels?" He grumbles, raising his thin eyebrows. I almost swallow the toothpick I'm balancing between my teeth.

"P-peridot?" I stammer, eyes shooting open.

It's Lars' turn to be caught off guard. "Yes? Wait- wait. Bro, are you like, not with her?"

"No! Wha- Yes? Shit, I don't know, shut up!" I splutter, my head sinking into my arms. In hindsight, I probably should've just played along with him from the start. "It's weird," I say as my final verdict.

Lars does as any teenager digesting drama would do and makes a trademark 'think face' as he contemplates the gravity of my tender situation. He frowns and squints in thought, his brows creating a set of ridges on his forehead.

"So wait," he drawls. "If you're not with Peridot, then who _are_ you with?"

"Nobody you know," I say, snapping the toothpicks between my clenched fingers. I wish I was in the right mind to worry about splinters, but every nervous thought in my mind is wired directly to a rapid train of horrified thought:

 _Don't let him know. Don't let him figure it out. Don't let him catch you. God, don't do that._

"I work at a donut shop. There's nobody in this town I don't know, baby. Believe me," Lars laughs, folding his fingers together.

"Her name is Pearl," I grind out, looking at my shoes. The broken shards of wood in my hand press against the delicate flesh of my palm. I loosen my grip, but only enough to keep my skin from breaking.

"Oh, I know her. She's a prick, but she's pretty hot, if you don't look too hard," Lars snorts.

I smack him upside the head. "Try and say that again," I hiss.

"I'm a man, I notice this stuff!" Lars defends, holding his hands up. "Her body is just kinda, you know, flat. That's all. Other than that? Total babe. Probably a killer lay, right?"

My eyes go wide and I sock him on the arm hard. "You're a fucking dog," I sneer.

"Woof," Lars deadpans with a shit-eating grin.

I inwardly cringe at the mention of sex, but I try to swallow my discomfort. I'm reluctant to report that the Frog-Bra incident has been haunting my subconscious since last Friday, and since then I've hardly been able to look at the offending clothing without feeling a little sick in my gut.

I mean, I know that it wasn't entirely the bra's fault for cutting us off- Peridot isn't stupid, and she probably caught me shaking like a little kid and decided to call it quits before I started crying or something.

It's okay though. Lately, I've been working to condition myself to the feeling of liking sex, and between touching myself and touching Peridot, I think I've gotten pretty far. I just need to fix my mind back into an athlete's function of thought and push myself a little more.

I wanted to start something with her over the week after school, but she just pushed me off of her and claimed that she was hungry. Personally, I think it had to do more with the fact that I yelped like I'd been hit when she tried to feel me through my jeans.

What sucked the most, was the fact that she was really getting into it when I forced us to stop. Her face was flushed, her body was shaking, and I'll never forget the frustrated scowl that crossed her face when I cringed.

"So like, how do you, _you_ _know_ , with two girls?" Lars goads suddenly, gesturing with his fingers, "Peridot won't tell me." I smack him again, and I'm beginning to dread the dawning concept that he might _like_ getting hit.

"What's fucking _wrong_ with you?" I growl.

"Damn, I'm a healthy teenager, dude. I like sex. It's what we humans tend to do," Lars laughs.

I can't even fake a smile- I'm too busy trying my best to refrain from puking. I rationalize with myself- it can take Peridot two _hours_ to save me from this conversation, or it could take me two _seconds_ to jump off the food court balcony. The latter is starting to sound really appealing.

"Dude, I was just joking," Lars amends after a tense silence. "I'm sorry or whatever. Chill."

"Yeah, okay," I whisper, squeezing my handful of toothpicks again to get a grip.

Lars huffs and makes a face. "God, why are you acting like such a pissbaby all of a sudden?"

I shrug and swallow the ever-growing knot of words in my chest and shake my head.

Realizing that I'm in a shaky mood, he leans forwards and tentatively ruffles my chemical-dried hair sympathetically. He manages a little quirk of his lips that I find almost friendly. "Is this about Peridot?"

It's not Peridot, but maybe if I pretend he's right, he'll drop the conversation.

"W-what?"

"Figured," he says, sighing, "Look, there's something about the way you look at her, okay? Like, I'm sure Pearl's awesome, but I've seen that look before. It's love, buddy." Something brings me to recall the hazy sideways glances Sadie offered Lars before we split. Somehow, I can't imagine myself with the same sloppy grin and lidded eyes.

"I wish you were dumber," I mumble, nuzzling into the crook of my elbow.

"Most people do," he shrugs. There's something familiar about the sad look in his eyes. "It's no fun being the bad guy, is it?" he remarks. Without a sharp wit left on my tongue, I can only nod. I don't know what's going on with him, but for a moment, I feel as if we're both carrying a little bit of each other's burdens.

Peridot and Sadie come into sight a rough half hour later. Although Sadie claimed that they had parted with us for _her_ needs, Peridot's the only one hanging on to a shopping bag. I find it curious, but I don't dwell.

"Hey, Lapis! Lars!" Sadie calls. "Over here!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin'."

Lars stands up and stretches before ambling over to them. I follow, dumping my decimated toothpicks into the trash can as I pass it.

My first impulse is to attach myself to Peridot. My second impulse is to leer inside her bags so that I can figure out what the hell she spent an hour buying. Peridot catches my prying eye and casually shifts the bag to the other side of her body.

"What'ja get?" I ask casually, stuffing my hands into my pockets to avoid brushing them with hers. I want to offer to hold her bag, but something stops me, and so I just sort of stand there like a useless jackass.

"Lacy bra. Silk panties. Sephora's Funky Fushia lip gloss," Peridot rattles off tartly. I roll my eyes and bump her playfully.

"Shit, Peri. If I didn't know better I'd think you were a girl," I laugh. Peridot flicks me in the ear and hangs on to her bag tighter, if possible.

"You're the worst," Peridot grumbles. "Don't be surprised if I end up shoving my Funky Fushia up your ass."

"Kinky."

We break into a loud laugh and slowly make our way out of the mall. Peridot doesn't hold my hand, but she keeps constant contact between our arms. And I find myself grinning, because if anything, Peridot is warm. And by nature of conductive heat transfer, that means she's making me warm, too.

I can see my breath in the air as we walk out and search for Sadie's old sedan. Peridot mimes smoking and I smack the pretend cigarette from her hand.

"Cut that shit out. That's disgusting," I snap.

"Fair enough," Peridot frowns, glancing down at her shoes. Her jaw stiffens visibly, but I brush it off.

We end up curling into Sadie's freezing sedan five minutes later, huddling together in the back for sheer need of warmth. The heating system in Sadie's car is in worse condition than my current mental state, and it's all the piece of scrap metal can do to keep the wind out of our bones as she drives us back down the highway.

We're quiet the entire ride home, save for the occasional backwards comment regarding the bumper stickers slapped on the cars we pass. Peridot and I take silent count of every family decal set we find.

Current count: 18

"Those are dumb," Peridot finally comments. "I mean, what's the point? Fantastic- you've had enough sex to produce three kids. Good for you."

I laugh and bump her shoulder playfully. "Quit being such a cynic. I think they're cute."

Peridot bites her lip. "If _we_ got one…"

"It'd be me, you, and maybe Alduin," I say firmly. " _If_ we could find snake decals. They probably don't have them- snake discrimination is pretty rampant in these types of companies lately."

"Oh my god, you total _dork_ ," Peridot flushes red and turns away, leaning her head against the window. I grin and resist the urge to peck her on the cheek.

It seems odd to me that I'm thinking out my future with someone who isn't even my girlfriend, but neither of us wants to spoil the lighthearted moment. After all, they've been pretty far and few as of late, and it'd be a sin to waste them.

We're quiet again until Sadie finally pulls us into Peridot's driveway. "Here we are," She says with a grin. She unlocks our doors in a silent command for us to get out.

Peridot complies, awkwardly maneuvering her bag as she stumbles out. Sadie hugs her through the window and whispers something lewd enough to put red in my best friend's ears. Peridot nods stiffly and marches up to the door, face comical. She leads me in wordlessly, and I kick off my shoes at the mat.

"Parents?" I ask warily.

"Not home," Peridot grins, taking me by the hand upstairs. Her voice is laced with a sort of shaky nervousness that I can't place. And because her voice is almost always full and filled with purposeful bitterness, this takes me off guard.

I raise my brow, following her up. My eyes are trained on the paper bag that she's holding just a bit too closely to her chest.

"So what did you really buy?" I ask.

"I told you already, dumbass," Peridot huffs.

"Yeah yeah, fabulous fuchsia-,"

" _Funky_ Fuchsia, you uncultured swine." Peridot kicks the bag in the bathroom behind her and shoves me into her room. "Anyways, I just bought some cool graphic shirts I found. I'm gonna go make sure they fit, if that's an acceptable excuse."

"Go wild," I shrug, laying back on her bed and letting my eyes slip shut. I hear Peridot scuttle into the bathroom and slam the door. Nothing about this strikes me as odd until I hear the lock click.

I sit up with curious eyes and roll off of her bed, scooting towards the bathroom door. I slide down the wall and press my ear to the thin slab of wood, hugging my knees. I can't discern much, but I do manage to pick up remnants of cussing, cursing, and everything they tell you not to say in Ladies' Private Schools.

"Peridot? You alright in there? It's been like," I check the clock at the end of the hallway and squint to make out the exact time. "I actually have no idea how long it's been. But it's been long," I confess.

"I'm fine," Peridot hisses, although I can tell by the nature of her voice that she is definitely _not_ fine.

"Peridot…"

"Seriously, I'm great. I'll only be like, five more minutes," She amends.

I wait an agonizing _ten_ before I'm ready to accept my impatience. I stand up, wincing when the blood flowing back into my legs fees like television static. I wobble a bit before grabbing the doorknob and knocking hard.

"I'm coming in there! If you're masturbating, well, it's nothing I haven't seen before!" I yell, wiggling the knob.

"Lapis!" Peridot squeaks, "you haven't seen-,"

"Correction- it's nothing I'm not _willing_ to see," I joke. Peridot shrieks in frustration and panic.

The thing about Peridot's house is that it's old. And the thing about old houses is that not all of the simple machineries really work like they're supposed to after so long. What I'm trying to spell out is that none of the interior doors in her house actually lock- the rusting mechanism can be jiggled out of place and opened if one is determined enough.

And damn, am I determined to find out what the fuck she's been hiding from me all day.

I manage to swing the door open, but my laugh of victory gets caught in my throat halfway. I can feel my cheeks heating up, and my wide eyes can't find the will to look away from Peridot's lips. I'll be damned- they're bright pink.

"You weren't lying about the lipstick, were you?"

It takes a moment for me to digest the image before me, as I thought I'd see the second coming of Jesus Christ before I saw Peridot in a skirt and thigh-highs. I mean, it's not as if she's not _attractive_ \- I'm just a little dumbfounded that she made the conscious effort to look that way. A loose, half-cut shirt slips off one of her shoulders, revealing a bright red lace bra strap. Something tells me she wasn't lying about any of the items she claimed to have bought.

Peridot is on me immediately, smacking and punching me in the chest. "Get out! Get out get out get out!" She yells, her voice cracking hysterically. I can hardly hear her protests behind the sound of my own laughing.

"Oh my god, Peri. Stop," I say between heavy inhales and bubbling giggles. I grab her wrists and shift them to one big hand. My fingers wrap around her skinny arms way too comfortably- I find that I can touch my thumb and middle finger around both her wrists with ease.

I brush my thumb along her hairline with my free hand. She looks like she fought a war with her wild hair and lost horribly. Little scraps of blonde still stick out at awkward angles, and it almost looks plastic from how much gel she used trying to wrestle it into submission. I come to the comical deduction that her head looks like a Christmas tree- decorated with hair product, and ill-placed bobby pins. All it needs now is a star.

Peridot glows bright red and stares down at her feet. She still mutters obscenities at me, but without her fists to back them up, she loses her fire pretty quickly.

"Here, you dummy. You're smudging your makeup. Let me help, okay? I'm not laughing," I say in the gentlest voice possible. I kick the door shut behind me to keep from getting pushed out again, and when I let her go, she only folds her arms over her chest miserably.

"You're totally laughing. I look like a fucking idiot," she groans, taking a shaky breath.

"You look adorable," I correct, sitting her on the counter and reaching for her makeup bag. It's a bit old and well used which leads me to assume that it's her mother's. I set my hand on Peridot's neck and balance my thumb on her jaw. "Tilt you chin up," I instruct.

Peridot does as she's told, reluctantly permitting my touch to guide her. She bites her lower lip hard and plays with her thumbs as I work with the mascara. Her eyelids instinctively flutter and I miss her lashes completely.

"Hey, quit closing your eyes," I scold. "Didn't your mom ever teach you how to do this thing?"

Peridot shrugs. "Dad taught me how to shave," she offers with a noncommittal grunt.

That's not exactly what I meant."

"What about _your_ mom? When did she ever find the time to teach you how to do your makeup?" Peridot snaps back, clicking her jaw in agitation.

"Shit, I think she did it for me once in fifth grade before a choir concert? I don't know, actually. I learned mostly from videos," I laugh lowly.

Thinking about my mom makes me grin with uncontained anticipation. Only two more days. Two more days until she and dad come back home. I can't wait to smell her favorite perfume in the house again. She might even tell me I've done a good job keeping the living room clean, and maybe she'll ask if I've got a boyfriend yet.

Well, I don't have a boyfriend, but if Peridot's dad taught her to shave, maybe he also taught her how to tie a tie and speak like a gentleman.

I'm joking. That's a joke.

"You still excited about your parents?" Peridot breaks into my thoughts with a frown.

"Hell yeah, you asshole- I've only talked to them twice in the past two months. They've been out of the country and couldn't afford a roaming plan or something. I think they're in Belize this time? Whatever, I don't know. But they told me they're gonna bring me a guitar from wherever they are to make up for it," I ramble on, adding some sparse amounts of red blush to Peridot's soft cheeks. "They said they'd get it engraved with my name."

"How wonderful," Peridot grumbles, "Totally justifies abandoning their teenager for extended periods of time."

"I'm gonna make you eat this," I warn, waggling the Funky Fuschia lip gloss in my fingers before pressing it to her lips. A quiver goes down Peridot's spine, and I force myself to hush my laugh. "They have rough schedules. You know how it is- I can't just ruin their careers. I mean, it's not like they don't love me- they're just busy."

Peridot simply sighs and accepts my explanation with a grain of salt. I try not to let her disinterest bother me, but when you're so hyped up for something, the last thing you want is for people to tell you to sit down and shut up.

With a grimace, I finish her lips and release her jaw, standing back to admire my work.

Peridot stares at me expectantly and I nod towards the mirror. She goes to bite her lower lip, but remembers the lip gloss and stops halfway through. Peridot hops off the counter, pats down her skirt, and stares into her reflection as if it's a beautiful stranger. She grins, her lips parting just enough for me to catch a sliver of white teeth poking through her uneven smile. She presses her finger to the mirror, entranced, and traces her jaw.

"Fuck, do I look pretty," she whispers. She looks like a child seeing the mall Santa for the first time, and it's kind of adorable.

But it's sad, too, because something about the fascinated way she says it makes me feel as if she's a scientist uncovering something never seen before. As if the very notion that she could be attractive is, at best, an anomaly.

Peridot chuckles to herself in disbelief and turns back to me hopefully. "What do you think?"

I suck in my lips and let my eyes travel down her body. I try to find one thing that makes me want to follow any human desire, but I can't. I mean, yeah, she looks like a goddamn painting, but I'm pretty sure it's just a tad disrespectful to fuck an oil canvas.

"You look nice," I remark, leaning in to kiss her temple. "You didn't do this for me, did you?"

"Nah I just, you know, spent this money because I have a massively disposable income," Peridot sneers, laughing in awkward displacement. She squeezes her fists and scrunches her brow, looking down. "Shit. You don't like it, do you?"

I immediately wrap my arms around her and shake my head. "No! I love it," I assure her. "But you shouldn't do shit for me, you know? I mean if you want to dress girly because that's what _you_ want, go ahead. But don't do it for me. Look, you don't need to convince me that you're pretty. I already know you are. Actually, I think the only person who needs to be convinced now is you."

"Yeah, whatever," Peridot grumbles.

I sigh, pulling away and holding her at an arm's length, my hands firm on her shoulders. I duck down to meet her eyes, and when she stubbornly looks away, I simply shove myself back into her line of vision. I lock our eyes, daring her to glance away.

"Look," I whisper, "You're allowed to be enough, okay?" I wait until she nods before drawing her into another hug. Peridot digs her nose into my chest, thoughtlessly ruining the makeup she worked so hard to impress me with.

Peridot drums her fingers across my arms and frowns. She knits her eyebrows. "Is how you hold her?" She asks after an extended silence. Catching the incredulous look I give her, she visibly shrinks, "Shit, sorry- I didn't mean-,"

"S'fine," I murmur. "But nah. Pearl's like six inches taller than me. I'd have to stand on a chair to pull this off." Maybe I should feel my chest seize with guilt. Maybe I should feel like the scum of the earth for cheating on my girlfriend for whatever this is. But I don't. Or maybe I do, and I've just become desensitized to the feeling. Maybe I've just hit my emotional flat line.

Peridot snickers, and I suddenly start to notice everything different about them. It's like they're one of those magazine games where they show you two nearly identical pictures and ask you to spot the difference.

I think back to the last time I hugged Pearl like this. I'm sure it was only a week ago, but lately, weeks have been feeling like seven-day forevers, so I can't be sure. Still, I have committed to memory the feeling of Pearl's spindly arms curled around my body.

She's always chaste, even behind closed doors, and she holds skin like a child holds their favorite stuffed animal. Her height draws her arms to lie comfortably on my shoulders, and she often feels restrained, like she's trying not to depend on anything but her own legs to hold the rest of her up.

Peridot's on the other side of the metaphorical spectrum. While Pearl holds me high and with detached affection, Peridot's arms are slung around my waist, her fingers brushing my ass suggestively. She's the type to fall into whoever holds her, and there's no hesitance when she puts her full trust and half her body weight into me as she hangs on lazily and expects me to keep her up.

If were the smart type, I'd be able to conjure up a hypothesis to explain what this means to me. But I'm not, so I'm stuck trying to stuff my scrambled emotions back into my ribcage where they belong like they're a deck of cards and I'm playing a sick game of 52-pick-up.

Peridot breaks my thoughts by catching me on the lips. I grin and push her against the bathroom counter just roughly enough to lead us into something more intimate. I steel myself and make a vow: I'm gonna show this girl how beautiful she is if it rips me apart and never glues me back together.

I inhale sharply through my nose and deepen our kiss, hands already traveling to her hips. Peridot shivers and pushes me away to establish some air between us.

"You okay?" She whispers, her voice soft and articulate.

"Always am," I lie, locking my jaw. I force myself to smile, and maybe I should be an actress, because it fools even me when I catch a glimpse of it in the mirror.

Peridot nods and carefully slips her fingers up my loose shirt, her nails dancing along my ribcage and tracing the slight ridges beneath my skin. I gasp, pushing myself into her hand. I close my eyes and suck on her neck to keep my noises to a minimum.

I can't hide my whimper when the tips of her fingers press against my chest. I swallow a wad of spit and stomach acid, and my body quivers without my regard. Peridot kisses the top of my head almost lovingly. "It's okay to stop," she says in a voice too gentle to be hers.

Maybe she really does intend it to be gentle, but the only tone I hear is condescending.

"N-no," I growl through clenched teeth. "I'm fine, okay?" My hands squeeze around a clump of gelled hair and I end up accidentally pulling out half-a-dozen bobby pins from the back of Peridot's head. She hisses and curses at me.

Peridot nudges me a bit and stares up into my eyes. Her cloudy gaze suddenly flashes with something vibrant, and I feel my heart crack in my chest like lightning pummeling the earth.

"Lapis," she says, pulling my hand from her head and resting it at her hips. I feel as if I look like one of those floppy-eared dogs with the sad eyes. Basset hounds, I think they're called. "Let's try something." She suggests.

I open my mouth to protest, but she cradles my jaw and whatever I wanted to say leaves me in the form of a hot, wordless breath. I frown and knit my brows, allowing her to touch me with little scrutiny.

"Marco?" She asks, her bitter face softening into an expression almost sweet. I wait for her to burst into laughter and tell me that she's joking and that I'm stupid, but the friendly insult never comes. Instead, I come to the startling realization that Peridot, for once in her life, is being dead fucking serious.

"Peridot, I don't-,"

"Listen here, you little shit; I had to play this stupid game with you, now you have to play it with me. It's how it works," Peridot snaps, her face twisting back into my favorite bitter expression.

I give her my best shit-eating grin and agree to entertain her. "Polo."

Peridot's hand slides down to the one spot in my back that can make me quiver. I sigh and arch my spine.

"Marco?" she asks, tracing the skin with her nails.

"Polo," I hum in response, face flushing.

Peridot pulls her hand away and lets it drift to my chest, fingers ghosting the most sensitive parts through my underwear and eliciting a soft whimper from me before going down further to my stomach.

"Marco?"

"Polo," Somehow, I manage to keep my voice steady.

Peridot tilts her head and watches me with sharp eyes, complying reluctantly and moving down further. Her hand traces my hipbone and further to my dim V-line. I squeeze my fists shut and whine. My fingers twitch, and I turn away to stare at the ceiling. It feels harder to breathe, and my lungs take in less and less oxygen with each equal breath.

"Marco," Peridot says, making it out to be more of an observation than a question.

"Polo, polo, _polo_ ," I chant rhythmically, desperate for her to just shove her hands down my pants and exterminate this stupid fucking feeling of internal collapse in my chest. However, she keeps at her agonizingly slow tempo, cautiously pressing her hand to the warm space between my thighs.

And for a scary moment, black edges my vision. My breath hitches so frequently and erratically that I can't pull in the air I need. My body goes cold and numb. The walls start to shrink around me. I feel my fists clench around something soft, and in the back of my mind, I hear a pained squeak. My mind is focused on one thing: keeping me alive. But from what horrible monster, I've no idea.

I don't know how to describe what goes on in my mind at points like these, but I can imagine filling your lungs with dry ice might simulate the feeling. It's my joints glued stiff, and my heart fed straight caffeine until it's ready to combust. And somewhere in the very back of my conscious mind, it's me yelling at myself at the top of my lungs because deep down, I know there's no reason to justify this surge of panic.

"Lapis? Marco?" Peridot's tense voice breaks through my barriers and anchors me enough to solidify the ground under my feet. Her hands have vacated to my wrists, and I realize that the soft thing my hands were clenched around was her body. I slowly unhinge my fingers and hope to god I didn't leave bruises.

"Polo. G-go ahead. I'm f-fi-fine," I stammer, becoming increasingly frustrated with my inability to speak.

Peridot sighs and withdraws from me completely. Slowly, everything around me becomes solid again.

"See, the point of this game is to tell me when you feel uncomfortable," she groans, dragging her hand down her face in exasperation.

"I'm fine," I press. "Look, q-quit playing games. If you're gonna do it, just fucking do it. I swear, want this, I want this, _I_ - _I...!"_ I suffocate the tears pricking at my eyes with my sleeve. An overwhelming sense of vertigo fills my bones once more, and my hands shake.

Peridot sighs and taps my body gently in a nonverbal question of consent. When I don't pull away, she takes her cue and wraps her arms around my chest, settling my head against her shoulder like she's done a million and two times before. "Lapis, you're safe," she assures me, running her nails through my hair.

I bite back the sob that's been building in my chest like winter congestion and purse my lips.

"P-peridot, I'm s-sorry. I tried, I tried…!" I say, my voice crackling like a well-fed fire. "I-I don't know what's up with me I just-,"

"Shut up," Peridot says firmly. "You're okay. You're fine. Breathe. In and out."

I do as she says, gulping down my tears with a stuttered breath of air. I notice the familiar scent of musky incense and ground myself to it.

Thankfully, my lungs soon decide that they've gotten their sadistic fill and begin to function normally again. But though I've regained the ability to breathe, I still find it too over-stimulating to move or talk.

Peridot fingers through my hair methodologically. This isn't the first time she's had to bring me down to earth after an episode. These bouts of staccato breathing and disassociation used to be a lot worse in middle school, and back then, I didn't have anybody to hang on to.

As I've grown, I've picked up ways to get a grip on myself and internalize my panicking, but every now and then something sets me off, and I can't do anything to stop it.

"You're doing great," Peridot says, and I focus on how her raspy voice rumbles through her chest. "Keep breathing, just like that."

"I'm sorry," I choke out as soon as I'm in a state to speak. I sniffle and shove her away from me roughly, feeling nothing short of humiliated and ashamed.

"Hey, it's okay if you don't want to have sex or whatever. I'm not dying to join the Big-Kid club yet," Peridot mumbles with a small grin, her hands kept stiffly to her sides. She wipes them against her stomach as if she's expecting a pocket to shove them into, and blushes when she remembers what she's wearing.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to like, prove to you that you're enough, y'know?" I say honestly, looking at my socks.

"Look, telling me will suffice," Peridot says. "And uh- if you don't mind, I'm going to change into my jacket pretty soon anyways. I miss pockets. My hands have been sitting at my sides awkwardly since I put this thing on."

I laugh weakly and nod. "Probably take those bobby pins out too. Doesn't that hurt?"

"Nah, they're just little pieces of metal jutting into my head. Totally comfortable," Peridot grins, shaking her hands through her hair and mussing it up until it looks satisfyingly haphazard once more.

I smile and help her clean the mess she made making herself up. As soon as we retreat to her room, she discards her top and wriggles out of her skirt, opting for a thick hoodie and pajama pants. "Well, this idea was an unrestrained disaster," she comments dryly, kicking up her game system and unrolling two controllers.

"Fair observation," I agree, grabbing my controller eagerly.

"Hey, Lapis," Peridot says, and something about the somber note in her voice makes me dread what's to come. "You haven't had an anxiety attack like that in a long time. Are you okay?"

"It wasn't an anxiety attack, I just got a little nervous," I stress. "Chill out."

"Lapis…"

"I told you, I'm fine. Now let's play."

I look away, allowing her to fix the game settings. Fast forward ten minutes, and I'm mindlessly slaying waves of zombies with AK-47's and grenade launchers, my mind free of anything I could possibly give two shits about.

And maybe I feel bad for cheating Peridot out of sex for the third time. Maybe I still feel more than adequately fucked up, and maybe in the back of my mind I can still feel Pearl's hands tracing the inside of my thighs for the first time. But as I immerse myself in the gory shooter with my best friend, I decide that I can worry about these things when I'm alone and dangerous only to myself.

It seems like a good plan. But to be fair, all the worst ideas seemed like good plans at first.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting, or following! These next chapters are going to be pretty wild so hold on to your hats.**


	14. Lapis' Kink is Fucking Me Over

**Alright, we're in the home stretch now kiddos. It gets a little rocky from here on out. They're really mean to each other but they're still friends, I swear.**

 **EDIT: Apparently, "Home stretch" does not mean to me what it means to several of you. I apologize. This story is NOT over. Sorry again for the confusion.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: Excessive swearing, Abuse, Violence, and slight, non-consensual sexual themes. **

* * *

Lapis' Kink is Fucking Me Over

When Lapis Lazuli breaks through my second story window for the second time, it's nearly ten at night, and I'm asleep.

Look, this whole _falling-asleep-at-a-decent-time-and-being-well-rested_ thing isn't really my style, but there comes a time in every exhausted teenager's life in which they say they're going to go to bed early from now on to avoid any future mental breakdowns. Of course, this proclamation is more often than not broken the consecutive night, but I digress.

By the time I hear my window squeak open, my fingers are already fumbling around my nightstand for my glasses. A body tumbles into my room, and I scramble to my knees.

"Who's there?" I snap, which, in retrospect is a really dumb thing to say to a possible murderer/burglar.

The menacing shadow jumps and backs up into my closet door. It's only after I hear a soft, "Aw, shit!" do I lower my shoulders, recognizing the hushed voice. Lapis Lazuli crawls into the dim beam of moonlight pouring in from my window, and I catch a flash of blue hair and eyes to match.

I throw my covers away, scowling.

"Lapis," I sigh, fixing my lopsided glasses over my nose.

I'd really like to be madder, but god, does she look beautiful. She looks like the type of girl to stand in front of a 24-hour drugstore at 2 AM waiting for someone to snap a Polaroid of her while she pretends not to look. She's wearing her swim team jacket zipped all the way up to her chin, and the bright glow of the gibbous moon shines off the blue in her eyes like they're made of the holographic strips they put on traffic vests.

Somehow, I manage to snap myself out of it. "W-what are you doing here? Aren't your parents supposed to be home or something?"

Lapis shifts her weight between her legs, glancing out the window with some brand of calculated urgency. "Yeah, sorry," she says, "so… do you wanna get the fuck out of here?"

"What? No!"

"Peridot, _please_."

"Lapis, just come sleep here," I grumble, slumping back down and patting my bed.

Lapis stares almost longingly at my warm blankets. She then tears her eyes away and shakes her head furiously. "No," she insists. She squeezes her fists. She ambles over to me with lopsided feet and practically falls into me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pressing her lips to my cheek.

Her body is hot and feverish, and her breath smells like stale bread. From this distance, I can clearly see the flush of her cheeks and ears.

"Are you drunk?" I ask, raising a brow.

Lapis shakes her head after a short delay. "No."

She doesn't kiss me again.

"Where the hell do you want me to take you?" I press, narrowing my eyes.

"Away. C'mon, just get your car and let's leave."

She drags the backside of her nails along the inside of my thigh. I cross my legs stiffly and turn away. "Look, I can't, my dad-,"

"He won't know!" Lapis assures me, voice edging on desperation. "Please, Peridot! I kind of really need you right now, okay?"

Maybe I should've been suspicious. Maybe I should've regarded her pleas with even an inch of hesitance. But Lapis, damn her, knew exactly how to take advantage of what sympathy I had and could coerce me into anything. I decided, with the percentage of my brain that hadn't yet been developed, that if she needed me, then I would let myself be needed.

I make the throatiest sigh I can physically manage and shove her away. "Go back out. I'll meet you in the yard."

Lapis grins. "Thank you," she says. She looks as if she wants to kiss me again, but stops herself and hurries to my window instead. I listen to the rubber of her shoes scrabble against the side of my house and release a paused breath as soon as I hear the dull _thunk_ of her falling to the ground.

I stretch out, taking a good minute to wake up and think about stapling "missing" posters to the city's telephone posts so I can find out where the hell my mind went.

I pull on some thicker pants and a jacket, stuffing twenty bucks, my car keys, and a cell phone teetering on 20% battery life into my pockets. Sliding into my slippers, I open my doors and peer out.

To my horror, my father is in the living room, watching college football and sipping a beer. I curse under my breath and retreat back into my room. Easing my door shut, I walk back to the window and stick my head out.

"What's taking you?" Lapis whisper-screams, concern etched on her face.

"Dad's downstairs!" I hiss back.

Lapis frowns and goes quiet. And then she looks like she's thinking and _that's_ when I get scared. Because, see, Lapis has two different modes of thought- the innocent kind she uses to flunk tests she actually tries on, and the devious kind that lands us both with broken fingers.

The first kind I can respect, if not solely for the good intentions behind it. But the second one? A constant reminder of why my left index finger only moves 70% of its original range and why I will never, ever try two-person bowling ever again.

Maybe it's the fact that a gradual grin crawls up her lips, but something tells me she's thinking with the second type.

"Lapis…,"

"Come out the window. Like I did," Lapis suggests. "The pipe's sturdy, I swear! It didn't even budge when I climbed it, and I'm like, thirty pounds heavier than you."

I bite my lower lip and squeeze the windowsill.

"Come on, Peri!" Lapis presses, stationing herself under the pipe. "Look, I'll be right here to catch you if you lose your grip. It's not that far, honest, and it's easier going down anyways."

"Am I allowed to write a will first?" I sneer, making a face.

"Shut up and come down here before I make you."

I groan and ease my leg over the sill, hands clenched around the hold tightly enough to bleach my knuckles. Still time to change your mind, I tell myself as I kick my other leg out. I lock my elbows to keep myself from falling and blindly search for the drainage pipe. My hands sweat a small ocean, and I nearly lose my grip as I transfer myself from my window to my gutter pipe.

"You're doing great!" Lapis calls, cupping her mouth with her hands.

"Shut up!" I yell back.

There's no breeze to rattle me, and it's been dry for the last few days, but I'm still struggling to hold on. Not so much because I'm nervous, but rather because I'm just plain out of shape. I tuck my shoulders in and squish my cheek up to the cold aluminum, inching down at something I'd call a snail's pace if the comparison wouldn't insult snails so brutally.

After five minutes of crawling and only five inches of space, I make the split decision to jump. And I don't care how strong Lapis thinks she is, there's no way she can catch me and keep her bones in one piece.

"Lapis, I'm jumping! Get away!" I say, pulling my arm away just briefly to shoo her.

Lapis takes a few steps back. With a shaky breath, I unhinge myself from the drain pipe, falling through seven feet of air and landing flat on my ass. The fall doesn't hurt, but I'm so shell-shocked by the impact that I can't even stand myself up.

Lapis laughs and helps me up, hands cold and quivering despite the temperate weather. She plucks up two bags at her feet and swings them around her shoulder. They're both guitar cases. If there's a cynical comment anywhere on my tongue, I make sure to swallow it down.

We walk in tense silence to my car. There's something thoughtful on Lapis' mind, but at times like these, I find I'd rather not press it.

I help Lapis stuff her instruments into the back seat, and open her door for her. She thanks me without a smile.

"So, where are we going now?" I question, fixing my keys into the ignition and twisting them.

"Shit, I don't care. I just don't want to be _here_ ," she says, her voice taking on an unusual coarseness. She tightens her fists, and I offer her a solemn nod and a silent promise to keep the radio silent.

I manage to make it all the way down the street before I speak up again. "Lapis, shit, what happened? You parents- fuck, are you okay?"

Lapis laughs, but it's not bubbly. Rather, every forced puff of air is weighted down with shackles and chains. It's the kind of laugh that drops in pitch, and raises concern.

Lapis looks me in the eyes and grins.

"I want to burn down my fucking house."

Because I don't want to notice the broken note in her voice, I focus instead on her body. She sways awkwardly in her seat and can't seem to focus on any one thing for more than a lazy second. I raise my eyebrows.

"You're drunk," I say again, sure this time.

The bitter reek of draft beer rolls from her tongue as she speaks. "Nah. Just hungry."

"When did you last eat?" I press, raising an eyebrow.

"A little bit ago."

"Lapis, you cut twelve inches off your hair and considered it a 'little bit'. Just how long is a 'little bit'?" I squeeze my fingers around the grips of my steering wheel and Lapis rolls her eyes, sighing in exasperation.

"I ate something yesterday, I think," she muses. "It's not a big deal."

Because the disparity between what Lapis thinks is a big deal and what is actually a big deal is much larger than it should be, I take her word with a grain of salt and insist on taking a pit-stop at the local fast food joint.

She watches me as I drive, overly-interested in my hands as I operate the stick shift. I brush it off as a drunken stupor and turn into a McDonalds. Parking in the lot, I open her door for her. Lapis stumbles out and when I try to twine our fingers, she bats my hand away.

"People can see us," she says simply. My heart tightens in my chest, but I force myself to keep a straight face.

She trudges into the fast food place as if she's walking down a school hallway, her eyes low and her body hunched. I have the incredible urge to hold her up and let her lean on me, but out of both spite and hurt, I refrain. We stand up at the counter, and the tired worker there offers us a pitiful greeting.

I jab Lapis in the soft spot between her collarbone and neck, and she jerks her head up, staring at me with huge, moony eyes.

"What do you want?"

Lapis scrunches her brow and squints as if trying to process my question. "wha-huh?"

"What do you want? Jesus, how the hell did you manage to climb up my window? Look at you." I point to her wobbling posture and she scoffs.

"I needed you," Lapis frowns, as if the answer should've been obvious. "But now I'm not so sure."

I roll my eyes and growl under my breath, shoving her away from me and ordering half a dozen mini-apple pies and a large Coca-Cola.

We get our bag of food, and I settle down at a table, passing Lapis the cup of soda. She sips it timidly. She's a real princess about her whole dedication to live like an athlete, and midnight runs to fast food joints are more or less dieting suicide. "I'm not hungry," she pouts, eyeing the packages of food with restrained desire.

"Fuck you, I paid money for these," I snap back. "Eat, okay? I'm not letting you starve yourself just because you're sad."

Lapis glares at me, but snatches a box despite and opens it delicately. She bites into it like one of those ladies that eat with gaping mouths to keep from smudging their lipstick. She takes her first bites with care, and then proceeds to wolf down the rest of the pastry like a starved beast. Lapis manages to tuck away four pies, and her eyes still linger on the fifth.

"You can have it," I say, wiggling it at her.

"Nah. They're yours."

"I'm not hungry; I had dinner. Turns out some of us actually have regular eating habits," I tease, poking her and opening up the package.

"You demonstrate like, probably the worst eating habits I've ever seen." Lapis' eyebrows rise. "Watching you eat is like watching the main character from a horror movie go into the same room as the killer."

"You're an asshole."

"Carbicide, Peri. It's a real thing, and you come closer to committing it every day," Lapis snickers.

I mock a scowl and push the food into her mouth. "Shut your _pie-hole_ ," I grin. Lapis gives me an exasperated and audible groan.

"I hate you," Lapis laughs, taking the pie from me and chewing it between long sips of Coke. Her cheeks look a lot redder now after the food and drink, and her eyes are clear and alert. I almost sigh in relief.

Her hand is resting on the table, tapping out a simple rhythm to a phantom song. I fight the urge to grab it and lose miserably. Lapis frowns and looks back at the register. Nobody's there, and if they were, I'm sure they wouldn't give a shit, but she tells me to knock it off anyways.

"Don't, Peri," she hisses.

I scowl and glare at the piss-yellow tabletop, ripping my hand from hers and burying it in my pockets like the fabric of my coat is the dirt covering a coffin. "Sorry. Whatever."

Lapis sighs and moves to get up. "Aw, you know it's not like th- shit!"

She knocks over the cup of coke as she leans over and it spills over my jeans. My hands jerk up instinctively, and I move to hop out of the booth, but the damage has been done. Coca-Cola covers my jeans from the crotch down, and fuck, does it make a convincing pee-stain.

I'm already red up to my ears and rushing to the washrooms before Lapis can apologize. I burst into the Ladies' room and check my reflection in the mirror, releasing a string of curses when I see the wet spot. I hurry to the sink and splash water on myself to dispel the stickiness that has started to settle between my thighs.

Lapis follows me in only seconds later. We stare at each other for a long moment in silence before she loses it and bursts out laughing.

"Peridot, you look like-,"

"Shut up!" I whine, stomping my foot like a toddler having an episode.

"C'mere, lemme help you."

"N-no!" I blush and grab a wad of paper towels, turning my back to her and furiously wiping off the front of my jeans. Lapis continues to giggle, yanking off another strip of towels and handing them to me. She turns me around by the shoulders and kneels down to help, but there's really no way to rub your friend's soaking crotch without making it awkward, so she just sort of stares and dabs at my thighs. Which is, you know, _totally_ useful and not humiliating _at all._

It takes nearly twenty minutes, but eventually, the most of the spill is dried out, and I look significantly less disgusting. Lapis helps me toss away the small mountain of paper towels, and smiles when she catches my eye. Suddenly, I'm being shoved against the wall and kissed on the lips.

Lapis wedges her knee between my legs and pins my arms on either side of my head, humming into the movement of our lips. I don't really kiss back, but I don't fight it either. Finally, she pulls away and blows a puff of thick, sweet-smelling air into my face.

"Seriously?" I huff, out of breath. "You suck. Big time."

"W-what?"

"You don't let me hold your goddamned hand, you spill Coke on me, and now you're kissing me? In literally the most disgusting place ever. You suck." I explain. Lapis retracts her knee and crosses her arms, biting her lip and staring at our shoes.

"You know I didn't mean to."

"Sure," I say, hoping that she doesn't realize how hurt I really am. I hope I sound childish to her. Maybe then she'll undervalue my emotions to the point where I don't have to face them.

Lapis does what I want for once and doesn't press me, instead apologizing silently by taking my hand and walking me outside. The sentiment is nice, but it's contradicted when she lets go as soon as we reach the parking lot, and goes back to looking around for prying eyes that don't exist.

"Let's go home, Lapis," I murmur as soon as we're both back in the car. Lapis shakes her head.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'? What the hell do you still want?" I ask, my voice cracking. I don't mean for it to come out so desperately, but I'm tired and miserable, and Lapis is somehow making it even worse. Lapis bites her lower lip and her left hand jerks in and out of a sloppy C cord.

"I want you to get me the hell out of here," Lapis says, her voice frighteningly crisp. She leans against the door and closes her eyes, and I get the feeling that she wants it to be the end of discussion. But I'm a dog with a choke-collar, and she's tugging the leash just hard enough for me lash out.

"Get out," I bark.

"What?"

"You heard me. Get out. I'm not dealing with this tonight." I say harder. To prove my point, I reach over and open her door for her. Lapis' brow softens.

"Peridot, please…"

"No, fuck you! I'm so sick of doing you want me to do because then you think you can get away with screwing me over!" My voice rises at an alarming rate, and Lapis only shrinks down in her seat. She takes a shaky breath and with trembling hands, she unzips her coat.

"What the hell are you doing, you clod? Are you fucking dull?" I yell louder, my pent up anger tearing through my throat. My fingers clench hard against my palms, and my eyes bulge. Lapis doesn't stop, slowly stripping her jacket and pulling her shirt collar down.

My fury fades as soon as I see it. It's huge, and purple, and five-fingered. It decorates Lapis' dark skin like an ill-fitting necklace, darkest at the base of her neck and tapering off at her collar. Lapis licks her lips and looks away, brows knit. She swallows hard and tightens her jaw.

We sit in silence for a long time, and with every passing second, I feel more and more like a grade-a jackass. I slump down in my seat and drag my hands through my hair to expel some stress. It hardly works.

Lapis speaks up eventually. "She didn't mean to. But she got mad. She can't control it, Peridot."

"Your mom…?"

Lapis nods numbly, her eyes blank and unfocused.

"What happened?"

She stares at her fingertips in disinterest. "We got into a fight. She told me that she wanted me to stop cutting my hair, or else I'd look like-," Lapis cuts herself off to close her eyes and lean back. "-anyways she wants me to sell my guitar and go into business like her and dad. I told her no, and she said that if I didn't, she'd stop sending me money. I told her that I didn't care, and she kind of snapped she…"

Lapis runs her fingers over her bruise and I see her chest heave. Her eyes open again and she smiles sadly. "I showed her that video of my swim meet, Peri. She said I did really good."

I sigh and drag my nails through my hair. "Please just come home with me," I beg.

"I'm sorry I've been so shitty," Lapis murmurs. "But if you take me back there, I swear to god I won't ever forgive you."

I should've ignored her. I should've locked all the doors and I should've dragged her into my house by the ear. I should've known, because if anyone knew that Lapis was a liar, it was me.

And maybe I did know, but I drove in spite of knowing, because even though she was horrible, she was still my best friend. And sometimes, that fact alone can overshadow every ounce of common sense in the world.

I stick my car in drive and take off down the streets, holding on the steering wheel as if it's a vein I'm choking the life from. "You're the worst," I snap, turning down some side street to dodge our houses. Lapis snorts humorlessly and observes me silently as I drive.

We pull up to a red light and I slow to neutral, fiddling with the shift.

"So how do you do that thing with your foot?" Lapis asks after an extended silence.

"What, the clutch? You just sort of stick this in first," I point to the stick, "and slowly transfer your weight from the clutch to the acceleration. It's easy."

Lapis hums in understanding and goes back to watching me with disconcerting intensity. I distract myself by focusing on my surroundings.

There's really no point- I know these streets like the back of my hand, and it's not like there's any moving hazards to look out for. If you subtract the stuff we put out for the vacationers in the summer, there's really no nightlife in Beach City. If you want a drink, or if you want somewhere that'll keep you awake, you've got to go inland towards the city.

I drive us in just that direction, heading to a secluded ridge at the edge of town. There's a fat stretch of unpolished land between Beach City and the city that we all used to love to as kids.

Lapis and I used to ride up there on our bikes after school with markers and write our names on our favorite trees. When we got older, we realized that the marker always faded away and began to use knives instead.

It seems so much closer than it used to when we were kids. Maybe it's the fact that we're bigger now, or maybe it's the fact that I'm driving at 30 miles-per-hour. I drive down the dirt path and park by the entrance to the trails.

Lapis is still staring as I pull my keys out and stuff them in my pocket. She orders me to open the trunk, scurrying outside to pull out her new guitar case. She fixes it over her shoulders and hops the fence set in place specifically to ward off curfew-breaking hooligans like us. It's not tall- 10 feet at most- but it's cold and sleek, and my slippers can't seem to find a foothold with their limited traction. It takes me quite a bit to clear the fence, but I do, and this time when I fall over the other side, Lapis is there to catch me.

She suggests that we go further into the forest so that we won't be heard, and like an idiot, I follow her. After all, Lapis is no schemer- if anything, she just doesn't want to be caught out late and turned into the police department.

We finally come to a patch of thick pine trees that are familiar even at midnight. Lapis smiles broadly and jogs up to one of them, searching around the trunk. When she finds what she's looking for, she calls me over to look. I'm not surprised to find our insignia, an L with a backwards P stemming off of it.

I remembered the day we marked it- it was two weeks before school let back in for eighth grade, and Lapis had smuggled a Swiss Army knife from her dad's desk. She had originally wanted to carve our full names, but I talked her out of it.

"Firstly," I had said, "that'll be _way_ too long to write out. Plus, if the cops come, they'll know it was us. We have to be secret, okay?" Lapis nodded seriously and then went on to make our mark.

She'd said it would be like a gang symbol. I'd rolled my eyes and I had told her that she was dumb and that no gang clods ever carved their names into any trees, because, duh, that was totally not a gang thing. Lapis had put her hands on her hips and asked me then, if the marker wasn't for gangs, then what could it possibly be for?

"Well," I'd said, "It's for us. So we don't forget where our spot is, obviously." And because Lapis was so sure that I was smart enough to know everything, she'd accepted my reasoning with a drawn out _"ohhhh"._

Looking back, I don't think I was wrong. Because I remember this spot exactly. And I remember every single tree we marked, even if it was in marker.

"Hey, Peri," Lapis asks, "what do you think our middle-school selves would think of us now?"

I laugh, shaking my head. "They'd think we're total losers."

Lapis snorts and settles down on her knees, setting her guitar case on the ground and unzipping it. My eyebrow quirks as soon as I see a wooden neck jut from the case. It's an acoustic. Lapis tugs it out like it's made of breakaway glass, cradling it.

"Shit," I whisper, looking at the name that graces the body. "Your parents weren't lying." My eyebrows knit. "Why'd they buy you a guitar? Didn't they want you to sell yours?"

Lapis nods and puts on a cocky grin. "I'll show you." She hikes the instrument up to her knees, prepares a chord, and strums. Instead of the full, melodic sound I'm used to hearing from her, the only noise Lapis pulls from the instrument is a dead twang that plummets through the air like deadweight. And that's when I look closer and realize.

The strings aren't even nylon. They're plastic. Completely useless, in musical terms.

"The tuners are glued in place," Lapis says with an airy chuckle. She clenches her fist around the strings roughly, and one of them snaps, curling around her closed fist like a stray wire. "They didn't even scratch off the 'made in China' sticker."

"What's it for, then?" I ask.

"It's a showpiece," Lapis says incredulously, "It's supposed to replace my Schecter. Like, really? That thing's practically, my _baby_."

"You parents _are_ fucking assholes," I agree, nodding solemnly.

Lapis stares at her guitar in silence.

"Well?" I say, trying to rouse her out of that pitiful state of haunting emotionless stupor. "What now?"

Lapis raises her head and looks right through me. "I'm gonna do what everyone in this stupid town has wanted me to do since I was twelve and get myself emancipated. Then, I guess I'll just go."

"Go? Where?"

"Don't know. Somewhere warm," Lapis says with a smile that would be better suited as a frown.

I feel some fire rise back in my throat. I scrunch my brow and step forward, growling. "You're just going to leave? What about school? What about me? What about… what about Pearl?"

"I'm never getting into college anyways," Lapis shrugs. She doesn't answer my other two questions, but I know she's thinking of a response in the silence. She finally shakes her head and twists the broken string between her fingers. "I'm already cheating on her. What does it change if I leave, too?"

"Lapis, don't be stupid," I warn.

"What, like you care? You hate her. I'm sure you'd like to see her cry, wouldn't you?" Lapis sneers, baring her teeth and locking our gazes. I don't back down, instead puffing out my chest and raising my shoulders.

"No," I say simply.

"You know, I always thought _I_ was the liar," Lapis laughs coldly, turning away from me.

Lapis loosens her grip on her guitar, sliding her hands to the base of the neck. She shakes it a little bit to affirm her grip, and hauls it up to her shoulder like it's an ax. She offers the night a long breath, and tightens her fists around the faux fret board. "Hey, Peri. Want to see something cool?"

"Lapis, don't…" I warn as I watch her eyes lock on a thick trunk.

She ignores me, backing up two steps and then running straight for the sturdy tree. Lapis releases a loud scream as she stops to force her momentum into a wide-arced swing. With the cheap wood it's made of, the instrument practically shatters upon contact and makes a loud, echoing crack. Lapis doesn't stop, accentuating every violent swing with a breathy roar.

"Fuck-," _swing_ , "this-," _swing_ , "bullshit!" _swing_.

It doesn't take her more than a few minutes to reduce the mass of useless scrap wood and paint into a _slightly less attractive_ pile of useless scrap wood and paint. She stomps the last of the body under her boot, panting like she just ran a marathon. Lapis stares at her mess, throws the last splinter of the neck into the dirt, and drops like a dead battery to her knees.

I cautiously approach her, setting my arm around her shoulder like she's the shiny teeth of a freshly laid bear trap. It's only then do I feel the small tremors overtaking her, and it's only _then_ do I realize that she's crying.

Lapis doesn't sob, and she doesn't scream. Let's put it this way; if you measured crying on a 10x10 coordinate graph, and you set the Y-axis to sympathy garnered and the X-axis to level of pathetic-ness (1 being lowest, 10 being highest), Lapis' crying would be somewhere around point (3,7).

It was silent, and it was impersonal, and in the right lighting, it was beautiful. I almost felt as if I'd intruded on something I wasn't supposed to see, and fought the urge to look down. Lapis' face had deformed into something monstrous, and her jaw opened and closed stiffly, as if she was wondering whether to look up into the sky and scream like they did in all the movies.

She wouldn't, though. That cliché really only worked when it rained, and upon looking up, the sky was as clear and tranquil as ever.

Her body spasms once more, chest heaving, and then she's out like a dud firework, falling into me and burying her eyes in her sleeve. I don't say a word, simply stroking her hair comfortingly.

"I'm so stupid," she says between shallow, hiccuped breaths.

I bite my lip. "No," I say suddenly, my voice much quieter than I'd intended. "You're not stupid, Lapis. You're the smartest fucking person I know."

Lapis slowly lifts her head and looks at me in disbelief. See, Lapis had heard from day one that she was beautiful, and that she was attractive, and that she had a nice body, but I don't think she'd ever been told that she was smart. And maybe that's my fault, because I don't think I ever let her accept that about herself. I've called her a moron more than I've called myself ugly, and that's a hard record to beat.

"I'm not," Lapis says, breaking into my thoughts.

"You are. So what if you're not good at schoolwork? I've seen what you write Lapis- like, your songs and stuff. You're smart," I press.

Lapis shakes her head, but I can see a smile poking past her teeth. There's another silence that hushes even the wind, but this time, we welcome it. It gives us air to breathe, and time to think, and really, that's all a silence is good for.

"Peridot?" she whispers, her voice cracking.

"Yeah?"

"I'm never having kids."

I nod and hold her tighter, as if my one arm can keep both of our brittle and splitting bodies together. "Okay," I whisper, kissing the top of her head, "okay."

Lapis tilts her head up and catches me on the lips. She's unusually gentle, moving at a lazy pace as she adjusts her body for better access. Lapis wraps her arms around my waist and bites my lower lip. I gasp. She smiles.

Her lips are warm, and her breath tastes vaguely like apple pie mixed with Coca-Cola amongst other poisons. I scoot onto her lap and wrap my legs around her middle, locking them at the ankles. I love when Lapis is this close to me, because I get to notice all the little Everythings that show themselves at an inch's distance. Like the redness of her cheeks, or the faintness of her freckles, or the stray hairs at the ends of her eyebrows. I wonder idly what she must notice about me.

Maybe she notices that I didn't even bother to cover up the huge zit on the side of my face. I'm sure she finds it charming.

Lapis pulls back to brush her lips against my jaw. She nips at the skin delicately, and I wriggle in her grasp, whining. My humiliation must amuse her, because she doesn't stop. Her hands search my body above my clothes, paying wonderful attention to my hips and ass.

Suddenly, she stops, pushing me a few inches from her face and staring at me with narrowed eyes. Lapis takes a deep breath and grits her teeth. She squeezes my body, but not enough for it to hurt.

"Fuck me," she says, her voice demanding.

"Are you-,"

"You heard me," Lapis snaps. To prove a point, she kisses me again rougher, and adjusts me so that my back is flush to the dirt and worms. She rocks her hips against mine and I gasp, slamming my eyes shut, and mouthing a soft "stop". Or maybe it's a "don't stop". I can't really tell.

Lapis sucks on my neck, her teeth digging into my skin. She pulls back with a wet pop, and brushes her lips over the new bruise. When we catch gazes again, her eyes are hooded, and her cheeks are red.

"I know you want this, Peridot. I see how you get when we kiss or whatever- like, the glint in your eyes. And-and I see you after I back away. It's the same look every damned time," Lapis' hand travels down to the flat of my stomach. I wish she wasn't right- it'd so much easier to let myself stop this. But my body reacts to her touch like potassium in water, and my hips rise without my permission. I hear the pull of a zipper.

"I don't want to think anymore," Lapis hisses, "I want you to fuck me until I can't."

Her hand slips down my pants and my eyes snap open. Finally, my mouth and throat work together to form one loud, clear word. "No!" My body freezes (which is a horrible defense mechanism, by the way) and I can hardly hear myself think over the roar of blood rushing through my ears.

Lapis pulls away immediately, backing up until her shoulder collides with a tree. She winces, but doesn't break eye contact. "Shit, sorry, sorry, sorry," she whispers, voice shaking. "I- I thought…" She holds her hands up in a show of nonviolence.

I nod stiffly, trembling as I zip my jeans back up and cover my crotch with my hands. Lapis still murmurs apologies like a broken record, but I'm not listening.

I wanted it, I know I did. But something stopped me. Something would not physically allow me to touch Lapis in that way, or let her touch me. I think it's called a conscience, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's just empathy.

"Peridot, are you-,"

"I'm okay," I nod. There's a long silence while I try to organize my thoughts like presentation note cards. "Look, I don't want you to have sex with me," I say, as clearly as possible. "Because I know you don't want this. I don't care what you tell me, and I don't care what I want. It's _okay_ to not like it, Lapis. It's totally normal."

Lapis' nostrils flare. "No, I want-,"

"Shut up!" I shout. "You don't know what you want! Look, I know your parents drilled this stupid idea of normalcy into you, but fuck that, okay? Fuck that. I'm not going to let you traumatize yourself to make me happy. _That_ , my friend, is fucking bullshit."

Lapis grits her teeth as if she's about to protest, but quickly deflates. She slams her fist against the ground and hisses, "fuck!" She looks as if she wants to close the distance, but fights the urge. "Peridot, I'm so sorry."

I nod like a bobble-head, my brows furrowing as a stray thought hits me. "Did you ever… you know, with her?" I ask, feeling my stomach sink even before I finish speaking.

"Yeah," Lapis says after a moment, "God, I was so horrible to her. I completely blanked during the entire thing and then I ran away like a wuss. I can't even remember if I told her that I loved her." Lapis hugs herself tightly so I don't have to.

I'm almost thankful for the space, because this news hurts an unreasonable amount. Maybe I had this fantasy that I could be her first. Whatever- it doesn't matter now.

Lapis lifts her head and laughs. "Fuck, I guess you can say 'I told you so' now."

"About?" I raise my brow.

"Me and Pearl. You were right. It's not working out," Lapis explains, shaking her head.

I snort a little and relax with a sigh. "Alright," I say, "I told you so." And we laugh just to laugh, which we've been doing a lot of lately.

"C'mere," Lapis says, patting the ground next to her. "I won't touch you unless you want me to."

I nod and gingerly make my way towards her, sitting next to her and leaning back on the tree. The night seems, very suddenly, much colder.

"Are you tired?" Lapis asks, looking up at the clear skies above us.

"Yeah," I admit, "you?"

"I'm kind of dead," Lapis chuckles meekly. She smiles and taps my hand, setting hers not an inch away. I accept her request, wiggling my hand under her huge bear paw. "Yeah, I guess I'm kinda tired," Lapis says, running her thumb over the back of my hand. "But it's not the kind of tired that sleep fixes."

"Mmhm," I say, my eyelids wearing heavy on my face. With the last of my adrenaline wasted, I'm close to passing out right here.

"You can take a nap if you want. I'll wake you," Lapis says, noticing that I'm kind of in the Twilight Zone of almost-sleep.

If I wasn't suspicious before, I should be now. But because I'm too tired, and too spent, and too willing to fall asleep next to my best friend, I don't even first-guess her offer.

"Wake me up in twenty minutes," I murmur, eyelids meeting. My last conscious thought is that of Lapis Lazuli kissing my forehead and uttering one last cruel apology.

And when I wake up three hours later, my phone is dead, Lapis is gone, and so are my car keys.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone that read, reviewed, favorited, and followed! You guys are the reason I put so much time into this lmao.**

 **SPECIAL THANKS:**

 **hopalformoreopal on Tumblr for their awesome playlist inspired by this fic! I ended up downloading the songs to my phone and listening to them while writing a good chunk of this, actually. They're all great jams. Check the playlist out on my bio!**

 **Mayordeweyhype on Tumblr for their awesome poem they made by selecting snippets of this story! It was so fucking cool to hear all these great unrelated passages work together like that tbh. Check the poem out on my bio as well!**


	15. Coming Full-Triangle

**Hey, check out the quick update time! Finals week is over and I passed! The story's not over yet, but I commend everyone who's stayed as long as they have. Thankfully, I'm on winter break, so the final two chapters should be out before January.**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: Cheating, Mentions of Abuse, Unhealthy relationships, Excessive swearing**

* * *

Coming Full-Triangle

My dad was not happy to pick me up at six in the morning at some dingy gas station thirty minutes away from home.

After waking up in the middle of the park with only a crick in my neck and my dead phone as evidence of the night before, I'd spent an ample amount of time throwing what most adults would regard with distaste as a tantrum. I swore until "fuck" and "shit" rolled off my tongue in the same way "socks" or "quantum physics" would, and I broke Lapis' guitar into even more splintered pieces.

And then I lost all trace of emotion suddenly, realized that the air smelled quite brisk, and walked. I hauled myself over the fence by the time the first glow of sunlight was cast upon the sky, and though it was cold and de-saturated by clouds until it was only a dim blue, I accepted it as a sign of hope.

I hadn't expected to come across the gas station- I must've missed it driving here, but I was grateful for it nonetheless. It was as if the universe had reviewed my life of shitty circumstances and decided that I deserved at least one single break.

Of course, calling my dad became just another shitty circumstance to add on to my _One_ _Single Break_ rewards card _._

The exchange had been both long enough for dad to explain how absolutely enraged he was, and short enough for dad to _prove_ how absolutely enraged he was.

Me: Dad?

Dad: Are you fucking kidding me- is this you, Peridot?

It was always bad when Dad said my full first name. Though all I wanted to do was relieve some stress and dig my own grave, I decided to keep my tone as neutrally polite as possible.

Me: Yes.

Dad: Where are you? Do you know I've been looking for you all morning? Your window was wide open, and your keys were gone- goddamnit, I thought you were kidnapped! _Where the hell are you?_

I paused to ask the cashier where I was. She told me in a small, almost terrified voice.

Me: I'm just outside of town, at the Shell gas station. That one by the hiking trail.

Dad: Don't you dare move. I'm coming to get you.

And with that vaguely concerning farewell, he'd hung up. I handed the phone back to the girl, and she offered me something akin to an apologetic smile.

"Do you want some coffee?" She'd asked.

I almost cried, and because I didn't want to embarrass myself by stammering out a "yes, please", I simply nodded.

I nurse my coffee like it's a fine wine, taking hurried sips of it as I press my face to the glass windows. They didn't have a huge breakfast selection here, but I'd managed to find some pop-tarts to shove into my mouth while I waited.

"Are you doing okay?" The cashier asks, leaning over her counter. I know she's only asking because she's bored, but I appreciate the concern nonetheless.

"I'm doing something," I laugh dryly. "My dad's gonna kick my ass. You?"

"I'm good," she smiles. "What happened? You look homeless."

I frown.

"Oh, sorry!" she amends, "No offense if you're like, actually homeless or anything."

"I'm not," I assure her. "It's a long story. Basically, my… _friend_ … convinced me to drive her all the way out here, and you know, kind of stole my car." Somehow, this sounds even more ridiculous out loud.

"Wow," the cashier says with a low whistle. "I'm so sorry. She doesn't sound like a very good friend, though."

"She's usually alright," I say, despite the fact that Lapis Lazuli really was, more or less, a crappy friend.

The cashier shrugs and goes to look at a magazine of sorts. After a long time, I see my dad's sedan pull into the station. I cast a goodbye to the cashier and walk outside. My dad doesn't even wait until I'm in the car to chew me out. He gets out, slams the door on the driver's side, and meets me halfway, holding his hand out expectantly.

"Phone."

"It's dead."

" _Phone_." His jaw twitches. I relinquish the object without another word.

I look down and duck into the passenger's side, feeling the hair on my neck stand at attention like little hair-follicle soldiers.

"Peridot," Dad huffs, running his hands through his hair, "what's this all about?"

"Look, dad I'm really sorry," I drag my hand down my face. I follow my apology with silence and a rueful look at the floor mats.

"Well? Do I not deserve an explanation? Have I done something _wrong_? What the hell possessed you to run off in the middle of the night? Good God, where's your _car?"_ As he speaks, his voice gets progressively higher in pitch and faster in pace, which is relative to how much I'm shrinking into the car seat. His eyes almost pop out of their sockets when he realizes that my car is nowhere in sight.

"My car's kind of… gone," I say quietly.

"It's _what_?"

"Um- gone. I w-was, uh, when I ran off, I mean, I was-," I cut myself off and take a moment to recollect my thoughts before speaking again. "Lapis came into my room last night around ten-,"

"I didn't see her," Dad frowns skeptically.

"She climbed the gutter," I explain before moving on. "She, uh, she told me to drive her out here. She looked kind of unstable… Anyways, I did, and I was tired so I fell asleep and when I woke up she'd taken my car keys and left me."

Dad raises a brow and scrunches his face as if he's trying to connect the pieces of a puzzle without the picture for guidance. "Was it Lapis who you got suspended for sexually harassing?"

"It was one stupid kiss!" I insist, my face burning. I bury my head in my hands and groan audibly. Without meaning to, I had confirmed his query and sealed my fate. Figures.

Dad nods in faux understand before exhaling and relaxing his shoulders. "Look Peridot, I know she's your friend, but I am sick and tired of hearing you get into trouble because of her," he says, voice so calm, it freaks me out. "Don't get me wrong, I love that girl like a daughter, but there's a point where you have to realize that someone is bad for you."

And suddenly I'm hit with an epiphany. My previous model equation had been wrong. It was not Pearl, nor me who was bad for Lapis, but it was _Lapis_ who was bad for us.

"I'm sorry," I whisper again, feeling my chest seize with guilt.

Dad sighs and puts his hands on the wheel, gripping firmly. "Dot, is there something you want to tell me?"

Look, my dad already knows I'm gay. He's astutely aware, actually. I can remember coming out to him during Christmas break of last year. I'd told him that I was gay, and in response he'd picked up the worst shit eating grin I'd ever seen on any human being ever and replied, "Well, with all that flannel you wear, you were either coming out as a lesbian or a lumberjack."

With that in mind, I can hardly imagine what he wants me to tell him. And then it hits me. My eyes widen.

"We're not dating," I insist as soon as I pick up the undertone in his question. At his skeptical glance, I add, "I mean, like, not officially. She's dating this other girl, and she's… she's kind of… cheating on that girl with me. Her girlfriend's name is Pearl. She's nice, I guess." I say the last part with defeat, bowing my head. I'd kept the secret for a measly month. Granted, I would've kept it longer had Lapis been any less erratic and reckless.

Dad sighs and lights the ignition on his car, putting it into drive. He coasts for a bit in silence before asking, "Did you two do anything serious?"

Because dad is about as comfortable with talking to me about sexual stuff as a fifth grader would be, I can recognize 'anything serious' roughly translates to, 'did you guys fuck?'.

To which I respond no, we did not.

"Because, uh- there's like those dental dam thingies, and like, protection you guys can use even though-,"

" _Dad."_

"Right," dad says awkwardly.

We're quiet for a little bit. I appreciate the silence that dad is all too eager to break again.

He stiffens his jaw. "Look, Dot. I'm gonna go up to the police station and file a report, okay? And after that, I don't want you talking to Lapis again."

I'm too tired to object, so I comply with a placid nod. "Okay."

Dad drives us home in silence. Somewhere along the way, I begin to let the hum of the car's engine lull my eyelids shut, and though I vaguely feel the car pull into my driveway, I'm too exhausted to pull myself out.

My door opens, and I feel arms wrap around the bend in my knees. I'm unbuckled and hoisted up like I'm a kid again, and dad makes a light joke about my weight as I wrap my arms around his neck. He carries me into the house, up the stairs, and settles me into bed, slipping off my shoes and my dirty hoodie.

"Those jeans are gross," Dad says, "Here, I'll throw you some pajamas."

By some incredible force of willpower, I manage to wiggle out of my jeans and slip on some plaid pajama pants. Dad eases my glasses off and sets them on my nightstand, covering me up with a blanket. "I'm going to call you off of school today, okay Dot?" He kisses my forehead and wipes my hair back.

"Am I grounded?"

"On the circumstances that you've been under a lot of stress; no. But don't ever do this again."

"Are you gonna tell mom?"

Dad laughs, "No."

Deciding that I'm finally safe, I sleep.

* * *

I wake to the sound of muffled conversation. I pry my eyelids open and inhale sharply through my stuffed nose. My face is on fire, and I'm too lightheaded to sit up without leaning on my arm, which is, you know, just a _wonderful_ little surprise. Sleeping in the cold must've killed my immune system like it was a lamb to the slaughter.

I shiver and wrap my blanket around my shoulders, reaching out for my glasses. Once they're balanced upon my nose, I lean against the wall to eavesdrop on the hushed talking that woke me. It's not polite to spy, but I figure that out of all the things I've done in the last month, this happens to be the least incriminating.

I catch my father's voice first.

"…up in her room sleeping. You can drop off her work if you're quiet, though."

The next voice makes my cold blood burn.

"Yes, sir. Thank you again for letting me in," Pearl says with a brown-nosed tone. And considering the size of her nose, this means something.

I grumble, taming my hair into something that gives off slightly less of a 'total meth addict' vibe and draw my blanket further up. That last bit is kind of a necessity, as it's a bit chilly in here and I don't have a bra on.

When Pearl comes in, I'm waiting for her. Which in retrospect is probably kind of creepy. She jumps a bit when she sees me, nearly dropping her neat stack of what I assume to be science homework.

"Peridot! Your father said you were sleeping."

"I was. You guys woke me up," I deadpan, my voice hoarse.

"Oh, my apologies!" Pearl says, eyebrows rising. "How are you? Your father told me you might be ill."

I gesture to my pale, sweaty face, forcing a grin. "I'm _fantastic_ , actually."

Pearl rolls her eyes and exhales. "Sorry," she says again. "Look, I wanted to drop this stuff off to you, but I also wanted to ask if you had any idea where Lapis might be? She wasn't at school today, and I've called her and she won't pick up…"

"I'm not Lapis' mom," I roll my eyes. "How the hell should I know?" It occurs to me all too late that Lapis' mom is probably not the best comparative to my situation.

A look of hurt crosses Pearl's face, and I make a big show of sighing dramatically before toning down my sarcasm. "Look, I don't know where she is, but she's not in Beach City."

Pearl looks at me renewed interest. "Excuse me?"

"She stole my car and left last night," I summarize, biting my lower lip and playing with my thumbs. "She had a fight with her parents. I think she ran away."

Pearl doesn't say anything for a long time. She covers her face in her hands and makes an unintelligible noise.

"You can sit," I offer, patting the bed besides me. Pearl accepts the space gratefully. She breathes raggedly, eyes wide.

"Will she be okay?" Pearl asks.

"I have no idea," I shake my head.

We spend a long time letting the hot air simmer, until Pearl eventually suggests that she could help me on the new topics they learned today in science. I begrudgingly go along with it, if only to keep my mind from taking me back to sleep. While she gets her notes out, I decorate my body with my blanket, wrapping it around me until it looks like a fabric anthill.

"I'm fucking freezing," I hiss, rubbing my goose-bump filled arms.

"You're sick," Pearl quips back, offering me her notes.

We study for a long while, going back and forth on the neatly written information. I usually find Pearl the most amicable when we're working together in an academic atmosphere, and I can't help but think she feels the same about me. For one, my sarcasm is directed _away_ from her and _towards_ the absurdly elementary topic we're learning, and she even starts to laugh at some of my crude remarks.

Her laugh is incredibly annoying. It's the laugh that belongs to a middle aged mother with dyed dirty blonde hair and who says LOL out loud to connect with her teenage children. It's loud, fake-sounding, and obnoxious, but I can't help finding myself encouraged by it.

It comes to the point where, after making a snappy comment about something or the other, I stare at Pearl's lips to gauge her response. Sometimes she laughs, and sometimes she simply quirks the corner of her mouth up in a nonverbal consolation which says _, "That wasn't funny, but I'm going to smile anyways to be polite"._

Eventually my jokes die down and we get back to work. Pearl stops us in the middle of a practice problem.

"Do you think about the future often?" Pearl asks out of the blue.

"No," I say honestly.

Look, I'm a smart kid. Smart enough to get a conventional job that makes money and pays off student debt in less than five years. And since I'm not really passionate about anything like Lapis, I've taken the executive decision to do something she'd never do and let my parents map out my life for me.

Honestly it's less stressful, and I find this lack of stress more than beneficial to my already waning mental stability. Dad and mom have decided that I can go to Penn State, get a major in computer engineering, and go work for some software firm. I'm not too crazy about the idea of moving from one cold state to another, but if it means I won't have to worry about being financially stable, then I can find it in me to care less.

Pearl shifts uncomfortably and rubs her earlobe between her fingers. "I do," she mumbles, not taking the hint that I frankly don't give a shit.

"Do you now," I hum with scathing disinterest.

"Look, I just want an outside opinion, okay?" Pearl huffs, her feathers officially ruffled. "I mean, I've been looking at those recruitment flyers they were giving out at lunch and-,"

My eyes widen and I gawk at her. "Oh my god, you're enlisting," I say, the realization hitting me like a brick. "You're enlisting for the army, aren't you?"

"Air Force, actually," Pearl smiles. "I took an aptitude test earlier this year. I scored in the ninety-ninth percentile." For once, I don't mind her pride. There are some things I figure you're allowed to be proud of, and passing into the military with flying colors happens to be one of them. "I don't care for war, but there are a lot of good perks. I'll be able to get insurance and healthcare for my family, for one. And I'll also be able to pay for college. I'm supposed to leave for a junior training camp this summer."

"Shit, good for you," I say, sarcasm void from my tone. My eyebrows knit, "did you tell Lapis yet?" I ask with some reluctance in my voice. I don't know what possesses me to bring her up, but the words have left my tongue, and I'm too curious to bite them back.

"No," Pearl bites her lip. "Truly? You're the first person I've told."

I suddenly notice that the sides of our hands have migrated together, and her fingers are nearly overlapping with mine. I try not to make a show of tugging my hand away. "Why?" I ask, feeling heat rise to my cheeks without my accord.

"You're unbiased," she shrugs.

We leave it at that.

After an extended silence, Pearl seems to find her lack of interest in me rude and speaks up. "What about you?" she asks with polite obligation.

I shrug and shake my head. "Uh, nothing really. I'm just going to go to college and get an office job or something. Kind of boring, actually. Maybe I'll freelance web design on the side." I force out an ugly, awkward laugh. It sounds a lot like Pearl's.

I think there's this common herd mentality amongst teenagers that we _must_ be something, and that our lives should be _fully_ dedicated to being remembered and known. Maybe it comes as a result of feeling that we are painfully insignificant, but it's what fascinates us enough to take up creative vices and it's what drives people like Lapis to refuse a life of average-ness.

I've gotten over that desire. I don't care about being rich, or famous. I mean, I obviously care about doing something that matters, but I don't care to be remembered. I've come to accept that I'll be average, and I've come to peace with it, too. It's one of the scariest things I've ever had to do.

But that's okay, because it's a boring life, and I like it boring. See, I've had exciting before, and exciting leaves you waking up in the middle of the woods with no car and nobody next to you, and honestly? That kind of sucks.

Pearl grins despite my underwhelming response, "I find your responsibility admirable."

I shake my head and snort. "Maybe."

I look at her and frown. I remember wanting to hate her so badly. I remember finding everything she did infuriating, if only because it was her doing it. I always thought I'd hate Pearl for as long as she had Lapis. But the more I stare, the more I find that I never really hated her at all. What I'd felt for her had only ever been jealousy in a cheap Halloween costume.

Pearl pads through the notes even though we've lost focus in them entirely by this point. "What are Lapis' parents like?" she asks.

"They're shitty," I say simply. "They treat Lapis like she's some kind of show dog, and it's been fucking her up since she was old enough to be fucked up."

Pearl grimaces.

"And they hit her," I add, my voice dropping. My chest feels heavy and I hate how I feel empathy for Lapis even after all she's done to me. It can't be helped, I guess. Empathy may be something we chose to have, but it's something we cannot stop once we have it. "Not often. They're not home enough for it to be often. But last night wasn't the first time."

I take a big breath and stare at problem number 32a. "When she asked me to drive her away, she had this big bruise on her neck. Like, uh-," I pantomime choking myself. Pearl's eyes widen.

"What do you mean, 'drive her away'?"

I realize my slip up all too late. I bite my lip, contemplating on how much information I should offer. Finally, I decide that Pearl, in all her annoyances and suburban mom-like tendencies, deserves honesty. And then I breathe.

I tell her what happened yesterday night, excluding the romantic bits. I tell her how Lapis got into an argument with her parents, and I tell her how Lapis smashed her guitar into a tree, and I tell her how Lapis, one of the strongest human beings I know, cried right in front of me. Pearl listens to me with some concerning mix of interest and indignation.

"You never suspected something was up?" Pearl asks. I think it's rhetorical, but I can't be sure.

"I did," I admit.

"But you went along with it," Pearl points out.

"Shit, Pearl, she was hurt! What was I supposed to do!" I huff, throwing my arms up. I grind my teeth against each other feverishly.

Pearl cups her mouth with her hands, and I notice how glossy her eyes look. It's at that moment that I realize that this is my fault. Maybe not entirely, but it's my fault nonetheless. It's my fault that Lapis is gone, and it's my fault that Pearl is about to cry two feet away from me.

And I get the sudden urge to fix the damage I've done. Or at very least begin to pay for the repairs.

"I have decided to tell you something," I say with determined finality. I stiffen my jaw and pretend, just for a moment, that I am a robot and that no emotions can hurt me. I pretend my glasses are the big circle-rimmed eyes of a cyborg, and though I've outgrown my braces, I can still imagine wires sticking out at odd angles behind my hair.

I lock gazes with Pearl, but I wish I hadn't. Her eyes are exhausted and dull. They're also a wonderful shade of blue.

I swallow my spit. "Lapis has been cheating on you. With me," I confess, locking my jaw. "It's my fault for what I started when I kissed her in gym class. She came over a few days later and asked me to go swimming or whatever, and… she kissed me. I'm sorry."

Pearl never hits me. She never curses, or yells, or hates me. And that makes me feel so much worse.

"You can hit me," I say quietly. Or maybe I'm begging; I really can't tell.

Lapis would hit me. She'd punch me in the shoulder hard enough to make me wince (but never enough to leave a bruise), and she'd call me an asshole. She'd storm out of the room, and I'd feel miserable, but at least I'd be able to feel angry, too.

But with Pearl, I don't get the privilege of emotion-numbing anger. And this infuriates me.

Because all I get from Pearl is a sad, knowing smile, and a confession.

"I knew."

My heart stops.

"What."

Pearl sighs and tenses as if the action causes her physical pain. "I've known for a while. Greg saw you kissing when you came to get your car fixed. He wanted me to break up with Lapis right then, but I made him keep it a secret. Honestly, I would've figured it out anyways. After you, she stopped telling me she loved me," Pearl whispers. Something about the evenness in her tone, as if she'd practiced these lines over and over- it gives me the feeling I'd imagine one would receive after getting their ribs kicked in. With cleats. By a big beefy football player named Bic (or something equally meathead-ish).

"But you stayed," I scrunch my brow. My teeth pull the dead skin from my chapped lips until I'm biting into raw flesh.

"I loved her, Peridot." Pearl snaps, as if the concept of love would be strange to me. She takes a stuttered breath and relaxes. "I can't imagine why I've stayed. If I knew, I would've left. Maybe I just felt like it was my fault. I wasn't enough, or I didn't do enough, or…" Pearl chokes down a sob. She has one hand over her mouth, and her head is tilted ever so slightly in the other direction.

Pearl laughs, but it's not because I made another snappy joke. She laughs out of anger, and frankly, I've never been more terrified of her.

"I just can't understand it. What do _you_ have that made her so eager to forget me? What do _you_ have that _I_ don't? What makes _you_ so _damn_ special?" Pearl roars, hugging herself tightly enough to break a rib and now sobbing freely.

I thought I'd feel better if she yelled. Boy, was I fucking wrong.

I lean down. I want to comfort her, but at the same time I'd really like my jaw to stay in one piece. "Pe-,"

I get cut off.

I don't know how it starts, but somehow by the end of it, her arms are enacting a chokehold on my neck, and her lips are smashed against mine. One spiderlike hand catches the back of my head, keeping me from ripping away.

I freeze, unable to do anything but let her vent her frustrations. Every horrible feeling I've ever received seems to crash down on me at once, and it's all I can do to shove Pearl away from me and jolt back until my shoulder hits the headboard of my bed. I don't even register the pain.

"I can't-," I choke out, covering my mouth with my palm. "What the _ever-loving fuck?"_

Pearl's eyes widen, and for once, I catch her off guard. "I'm- I'm so sorry! That was so inappropriate, I-I… I don't know what came over me! I'm sorry, I-," she cuts herself off.

I nod as if I understand, and relax a little. Pearl turns away, red faced. I realize very suddenly that I've humiliated her. I instantly feel sorry, but not enough to move any closer.

It's a long, uncomfortable silence. But after this last month, I've sort of gotten used to these kinds of moments.

Eventually, Pearl talks.

"I don't hate you, you know," she mumbles.

I nod stiffly and purse my lips. "I figured," I say dumbly. "Can't _possibly_ imagine why."

Pearl huffs, "I apologized for the kiss, alright? Please just forget it."

"Right," I say unconvincingly, as if apologizing can erase the fact that she'd kissed me harder than Lapis ever had.

"Anyways," Pearl drawls out, her tone offhandedly annoyed. "I think you're a good person. Even after what you've done to me. You just make bad decisions sometimes."

I want to laugh and tell her no, I make bad decisions _all_ the time, but by some force of will, I hold myself back. Honestly, I think I'm more fit to be a bad person who just makes good decisions sometimes.

"Why do you think I'm good?" I whisper, my question sincere.

"You feel guilt," Pearl smiles.

I don't believe her, but I pretend to because it seems to make her happy. "Yeah," I say, "okay."

Pearl squeezes her fists. She looks down at the floor. "Can I kiss you again?" she asks, thumbing the fabric of my bed.

It'd be so easy to hurt Lapis the way she hurt Pearl. It'd be so easy to cave into that feeling of loneliness and hurt and self-hatred. It'd be so easy to say yes. It's a one syllable word after all. Just like love, and hate, and war.

But 'yes' was a word that always belonged to Lapis. And I'm not Lapis. I'm not Lapis' other half, and I'm more than her best friend. I'm my own fucking person. And as my own person, I refuse to be Lapis for Pearl.

"No," I say with finality, "Never again."

Pearl smiles and nods. She tells me she wants me to forget this ever happened.

"Obviously," I say, "Because I have an on/off switch in my brain that can make me forget things at will."

Pearl laughs. She says she's sorry, and she forgives me.

We leave it at that.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, Favorited, or followed!You guys are great!**

 **SPECIAL THANKS:**

 **portalfan4351 on Tumblr for their awesome comic inspired by this fic! It's hella cute and cartoony and I'm hella flattered! Check the comic out on my bio!**


	16. Elvis Made Jail seem a lot Cooler

**Hi this is fanfiction and I'm suffering.** **Will I finish this fanfiction before 2016? Only time will tell. I wish I was a better writer lmao help me.**

 **ALSO. The next chapter will be the last! If you have any petty questions (or big questions) to ask me, I'll be answering them in the authors notes in the next chapter!**

 **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Excessive Swearing, Violence, Mentions of Suicide, Homophobic slurs, Cheating, Abusive relationships, mental abuse**

* * *

Elvis Made Jail Seem a lot Cooler

Look, I've gone through some pretty rough shit in my life, okay?

I've been practically living on my own since I was eleven, I've been called a faggot and a dyke by my own parents, and I once broke three fingers in a heated 2v2 game of bowling.

Okay, so the last one was a consequence of my own design but the point remains.

But nothing compares to the feeling one receives as they walk out of a gas station bathroom only to be shoved against a wall and told they're being held under arrest. The police breaking my skin on the bricks claimed to be apprehending me on accounts of grand theft auto, driving without a permit, having a blood-alcohol-content above what was permitted for underage drivers, and upon checking the car's condition, minor property damage.

The officers had patted me down roughly and intimately in search of contraband, and once cleared, they'd slipped my wrists into a pair of cold handcuffs.

Look, I'd only imagined myself in handcuffs in one scenario- of which I assure you had _nothing_ to do with the local law enforcement.

I cursed at them as they bound my wrists, and spat in their faces as they read me my Miranda Rights. I knew it was hopeless to struggle- one underfed teenager versus three cops isn't exactly an MMA-worthy matchup- but I did anyways.

"Miss, please cooperate," one officer hissed.

"Fuck you!"

I'm sure I looked like one of those trashy white folks who scream and cuss and humiliate themselves as they get arrested before being broadcasted to the world on cable television, but I didn't care.

"What's going to happen to me?" I demanded as I was nudged into the police cruiser.

"We're taking you back to the Beach City police station, where you'll be given your court date."

I'm sure that I'll laugh about this when I'm old and gray and retelling this story to my grandkids, but right now, sitting on a cold bench in the station with my right arm cuffed to a metal pole, I'm hardly in the laughing mood. I mean, I'm mad and everything, but I'm also kind of delirious because the last time I ate was more than a day ago, and it didn't exactly have substance.

I lean back against the cool brick wall and lazily rub my left wrist. It was freed in order to chain me to the pole, but it's still raw from struggling. I'd have my right arm free too, if they weren't afraid I'd try to make a run for it.

An officer approaches me, holding a plastic cup of water. I eye it distastefully before accepting and tipping it back.

"We're calling your parents, and they'll be able to sign you out real soon," the officer hums, ruffling my hair. I find myself leaning into the reassurance, nodding complacently.

The idea of my parents seeing me like this should mortify me, but strangely, the thought triggers very little response. Instead, some bitter creature at the back of my mind whispers to me, _Good. Let them see you. Let them see what they've done. Prove you're not their pretty little girl. Make them regret you._

"Okay," I murmur to nobody in particular. I let my eyes slip shut and lay against my anchor, trying to relax. I'm kind of on the verge of freaking the fuck out, and it probably wouldn't be great for my health to have an episode in the middle of a police station while chained to the wall.

I breathe evenly, timing the rise and fall of my chest with the clock like Peridot would tell me to do. I can almost imagine her thin fingers combing through my hair as she bumps our foreheads together. Her voice is faint and oddly smooth as she reminds me over and over that I'm safe until I start to believe it.

It's a nice thing to think about. Especially when the real Peridot probably doesn't want anything to do with me. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that she had asked her father to pick up her car from the station if only to avoid me.

A small part of me wishes this to be true. A bigger part wants to see her, for no other reason than the fact that I am a self-destructive emotional masochist.

I grit my teeth and swallow my anxious thoughts, and they simmer in my stomach acid like stale food. The exhaust fumes they give off as they burn away give me a stomach ache that no amount of Pepto Bismol will remedy.

The officer from before ambles by and I creak open an eye. "s'cuse me, sir," I prompt, straightening up. I don't particularly want to talk, but anything's better than being left alone with my thoughts.

"Yes, miss?"

"Um, can I have more water?" I ask, quickly tacking on a half-hearted "please?" at the end.

The officer smiles and nods, retreating to fill up another plastic Dixie cup of fountain water. When he returns, he's holding my cup and a small bag of chips from the vending machine I'd seen in the hall walking in.

"You looked hungry," he says simply, offering them to me.

I thank him with wide eyes and tear into the bag of glorified potato slices like a kid tears into the biggest gift-wrapped box on Christmas morning. I dig into the snack eagerly and lick the salt off my fingertips when I'm done. I'm not partial to junk food, but shit, desperate times.

I'm just about wiping the last of the crumbs from the corners of my mouth when I hear the door swing open and my entire body goes into cardiac arrest.

Of course they would be here. And thanks to the chain around my arm, I can't even hide myself or walk away. Pearl and Peridot touch shoulders as they shuffle in, looking grimly ahead and painfully away from me. I stare at them, waiting for them to notice my presence. The receptionist tells them to wait while she gets the documents, leaving them to either look at the wall, each other, or me.

Pearl catches my eyes for a split second before jerking her head away and frowning. My ribs constrict until they feel like barbed chicken wire pulled strict around my internal organs.

Peridot offers minimal relief to this feeling.

There's something impersonal about the way she stares right through me, as if I were just another stranger. She refuses to meet my eyes, staring just to the left of my line of vision. Her fists squeeze and her jaw locks, and she crinkles her nose in distaste as if I'd just taken a spit at her shoes.

God, I wish I'd only spat on her shoe.

I suddenly decide that I'm self conscious, and stuff my face into the arms crossed over my lap. There's some light chatter, the jingling of what I assume to be car keys, and then I feel the bench creak underneath me.

There's a long sigh (and good god, I can recognize her by the noise she makes when she's exasperated) and an obnoxious bout of throat clearing before a slightly stuffy "Hi," leaves Peridot's mouth.

I lift my head just enough to scope out my surroundings. Peridot's sitting a good foot away from me, and a good three inches within Pearl, which is thankfully more awkward than it is uncomfortable. I want to say something, but there are too many words that need to come out, and they clot up in my throat like dried blood.

"I'm sick now," Peridot grumbles. "Kinda your fault." As if to prove her degree of congestion, she tries to breathe through her clogged nose.

I roll my eyes and tuck my head back into my arms.

"Anyways," Peridot growls, glaring at me. "I've thought it over a lot. And I'm done with this. All of this."

There's a fat silence that follows her last word like a lost specter. I accept it with open arms, because it gives me time to pretend that I'm not half-an-inch away from the edge of the world and even closer to sobbing.

I decide not to fight it. I could fight. I could drag this out as long as I want. But is it worth it? Is fighting for this still worth the risk and the effort? Look, I've been fighting all my life and never has a good thing come of it. At this point, the best course of action probably includes rolling over and dying. Ideally, both.

Peridot obviously seems to be waiting for me to argue, to speak up, to yell or cuss or hit. She's even taken the express action to back up beyond the reach of my left fist. But whatever she's waiting for never comes, and I'd be lying if I said she didn't look the slightest bit disappointed.

There's another extended silence in which the only sound between us is our breathing. In the world of supply and demand, these awkward silences have only been in supply. And when supply outweighs demand, many things occur. Among them- economic depression.

"That's it?" Peridot snarls, her lip curling. "You put me through all this shit- you steal my fucking car, you force me into this shitty secret relationship, and you're not even going to say anything? Yeah, that's cool. Real smooth, Lazuli."

My eyes widen and the hair on the back of my neck prickles. Somehow, I manage to contain myself. Something about how Pearl stares at her shoes and avoids the conversation tells me that this isn't news to her.

"She knows," Peridot confirms. "Remember that fantastic stunt you pulled at the car wash? Yeah. Someone saw and told her. Fuck, I don't even want to look at you right now, but she insisted we talk. So stop being a bitch and fucking _talk_. Do it for her if nothing else. "

A gravelly voice I can't recognize as mine rings out, "What do you want from me?" I level my eyes with Peridot's and hold our contact. Peridot looks as if she wants to turn away, but her compulsions keep her from looking elsewhere.

"Well, first and foremost I'd really enjoy it if you stopped acting like such a fucking _prick_."

"Peridot!" Pearl scolds.

"Whatever," I snap. "Look, I'm sorry. Is that what you want? An apology?"

"No, not exactly," Pearl sighs, dragging her hand down her face and pinching the bridge of her nose. I wonder where she picked that up.

"Then what? Come to patronize me? Make me feel bad? News flash, I'm chained to a fucking pole," I sneer, the dismal ice around my chest melting into something furious.

"This isn't about you!" Pearl shouts. I cringe and feel red brush my ears. "Look, Lapis, I'll leave you alone if that's what you want so badly. But I'm not moving until you give me a reason why." As if to prove her point, she crosses her legs and clasps her hands together.

"Why?"

"Why you cheated," Pearl clarifies, clearing her throat. She has the expression of a detective on the brink of an answer they've always known to be true- as if she's been waiting for this.

I don't answer right away. Partly because I know no explanation will ever be satisfying enough to justify my actions, and partly because deep down, I really don't want her to leave. Maybe that's selfish of me, but I can't bring myself to care.

I could lie and soften the blow. I could tell her that I never cared about her, and that I never loved her, and that I only dated her for status, or a for another vile S-word I'd rather leave unmentioned.

But to say that would be a lie, because that girl was worth one thousand suns to me. I guess the problem was just that I'd always been more of a night person.

Eventually, I realize that keeping them waiting is a bit inconveniencing, and draw my lips together in finality.

"I'm sorry," I begin, my voice too loud. I hush it. "I… didn't think-,"

"Obviously," Peridot snorts.

I glare at her in silent warning to knock it off before redirecting my gaze to Pearl and softening it appropriately, "You have to believe me when I say I didn't mean for this to happen. I just lost control, and I was… scared, I guess." My confession kicks and screams as I pull it from my throat, and admitting that I feel fear is terrifying.

"Scared," Pearl parrots incredulously. I don't blame her. It's a generic excuse.

"Yeah," I frown, "I'm scared."

I know what Pearl deserves. She deserves someone who will look her in the eyes and admit they're afraid. And as much as I want to be that person, I can't bring myself to do it. And maybe this is unsatisfying of me, but life is unsatisfying.

"I was scared of losing you, and I was scared of losing her," I say, my chest heaving as I fight to keep my voice steady. "I don't have anybody, you know? And you made me feel loved, and I couldn't let that go. Shit, I guess that's more of greed, isn't it? I don't know- whatever. Doesn't fucking matter now."

Pearl sucks in a breath, making no attempt to even look upon me with pity.

I scrunch my brows together and my hands twitch. Without thinking, I blurt, "I mean fuck, is it so wrong for somebody my age to want to feel like someone gives a shit about them?" Immediately after the words leave my mouth, I regret them. I swallow my spit and steel my jaw, hoping my body doesn't seem as panicked as my thoughts are.

My gaze frantically darts between their eyes and unfortunately, the concern present is evident. They bite their lips and offer glances to each other like they're concerned parents whose child just came home in all black clothing. At least, I think that's how concerned parents would look.

I tug my right arm restlessly, causing the handcuffs to clink against the metal pole. It's an annoying sound, and I can tell it's only serving to grate on everyone's nerves, but for the life of me, I can't stop.

I really just want to be home right now, but that's not possible. Even if I did somehow break free and escape from this place, home would still be in the police station. Because home has never been a physical place for me.

Home is playing the songs I want to play on my guitar without trying to impress somebody. Home is listening to Peridot's hiccupped wheezing because I've made her laugh so hard. Home is feeling safe and warm and happy.

God, I haven't been home in forever.

I wish one of them would talk, but they're held hostage by the awkward silence brought on by the mixture of pity, shock, and helplessness that came as a result of my stupid outburst.

My lip twitches and I turn away. "Sorry. You can go now," I say, my face burning in humiliation. How dare they trick me into sharing my feelings. How dare they receive the knowledge that I am a human being with (gasp) _weaknesses_.

"Lapis," Pearl says, and though her voice is quiet, in the absence of all other noise, it booms.

I look up with wide eyes and the disgusting hope that maybe she'll feel sorry for me. It's a penny-slot gamble with very little payoff, but I take it anyways because in all truthfulness, I am a desperate loser.

Pearl's cold stare proves to me even before the slots stop spinning that I've only put myself in more debt. Her mouth irons out into a thin line, and she knits her fingers together.

She stands up, offers Peridot a glance that says something I can't read, and crosses her arms tightly over her chest. She glares at me.

And then finally, she speaks.

"I would've been your friend," she says a reserved kind of fury that freezes the last of my hot blood.

"I'm sorry," I say, my voice hitching.

"Yeah, Lapis," Pearl snorts spitefully. "I'm sure you are." She gestures to my shackled wrist and shakes her head.

"Look, I'm going to go outside. I'll wait for you by your car, alright?" She glances at Peridot, who nods back like they're anything but teenagers who hated each other not more than a month ago.

As soon as she's gone, my shoulders fall. My head is cradled by my free hands, and my chest heaves.

"I fucked up so badly," I whisper.

"Now you realize," Peridot says, though the sharp edge in her words is softened by her tone.

"She won't forgive me."

"You don't give her a lot of credit, do you?"

"And since when do you?" I grit my teeth, my eyes flickering to meet Peridot's. They're as cold and steely as I remember them being, and as someone who has recently experienced more twists and turns than a rollercoaster, I find myself grateful that they have the common courtesy to be consistent.

Peridot shrugs as if to say, "fair". She makes a noise between a puff of air and a laugh and looks out the door Pearl just stormed out of. "She's a good person," Peridot admits. She opens her mouth as if to say something more, but all that comes out is an empty breath.

"So when did you guys get all buddy-buddy?"

"Yesterday, I think. You know, the morning after you stole my car and stranded me in the middle of the woods."

"You're not gonna let that go, are you?"

Peridot looks as if she ate something particularly distasteful and flashes her middle finger. "You're a pissant, you know that?"

"I was staunchly unaware, but it's been duly noted," I smile just a bit. Peridot looks like she's torn between the impulse to slap me and to laugh. She shakes her head and re-composes herself.

"Whatever. Look, this is seriously stupid and _incredibly_ inappropriate timing-wise, but I want to get it over with and off my chest so I can go back to fucking living, okay?" She takes a heavy breath, which gives me just enough time to prepare for the worst. "I've liked you since we were kids, okay? You used to make me feel like I was safe, and I always wanted that to stay the same."

I cringe at her tone as she spits out "used to". It's not a nice sound.

"I don't know what changed," Peridot sighs. "But I don't feel that anymore. And it sucks, because I still want to be around you, and I still want you, and sometimes I want to start thinking that we can be okay again only to figure out that we're _not._ But I don't want this… _whatever this is_. I don't think we should be together, Lapis. Not now. And I don't want to try to be 'just friends' either."

My smile vanishes.

"So what, you think we should be _nothing_? You just want to throw away everything we've done together? You just want to throw _me_ away?" I pull at my shackles violently. Peridot winces as if she's been hit, her eyes anxiously locked on the chain and her shoulders tensed. "What is this even _worth_ to you, Peridot?" my volume spikes.

The receptionist warns me to keep my voice down, but I brush off her demands with a grunt.

"I don't want to be nothing!" Peridot yells, ripping at her hair. "I just- fuck, I don't know! I want to stop feeling like shit every time I'm around you. I want to feel like I used to when we were kids, and I've been trying so fucking hard to keep us together, but you have been making that incredibly difficult, you absolute _moron_."

I cringe and sink into the wall. She's been calling me stupid since we were on talking terms, but it hurts so much more when she says it this time, because I know she means it. She intends for it to hurt, and so it does.

"I'll do whatever you want me to," I plead. "Peridot, please. I can't lose you too." As I breathe, it feels as if I'm blowing up a balloon with a puncture hole.

"Lapis…"

"No," I say, face twisting into a pained expression. "You can't leave me alone, Peridot. Please don't leave me alone."

Peridot doesn't say a word, but she stands up, which is all I need to understand. It's an act of solidarity. She hasn't left me alone. I've left myself alone. I clench my fists and rip at my chains, though it's all for show. Even if I were somehow able to break them, what would I do? I'd probably end up hurting her more, if anything.

"Lapis, I can't-," Peridot shoves her hands in her pockets and shuffles away from me. "I'm sorry."

I lose it and lunge forward, only to be jerked back by my cuffs just inches away from her. "Fuck you!" I roar. "Fuck you, asshole!"

She pauses, but she doesn't turn around to meet my eyes. She wipes her face with her sleeve, and a horrible realization starts to hit me, like one of those slow-motion action shots they use in the movies. My fire is drenched in salty water, and I'm left quivering and cold.

"I love you," I choke out, fighting in vain against my cuffs.

There's a soft hiccup before Peridot turns around. My stomach sinks immediately. Peridot's eyes glisten with newborn tears that quickly overcome the crib of her eyelid and spill over onto her cheeks. I've only seen Peridot cry once before- at a family funeral.

It had been her grandmother's, and she'd invited me because I was her best friend, and she didn't want to be the only kid there. I remember she'd taken one look into the open casket and buried her head into her jacket and cried. She'd grabbed me, pulled me into the girl's bathroom, and locked us in a stall for a half-hour while she tried to desperately hide her tears from everyone else in the congregation.

"It's okay," I'd said, drawing her into a hug and leaning against the stall door. "Your grandma's in a better place, you know?"

"I don't care!" Peridot had whined, tightening her fists around my blouse. "I want her to be here with me! And I'm crying and I hate this and I'm so sorry I shouldn't've brought you and this is stupid and-!" she punctuated her rant with a loud growl.

"It's okay," I'd smiled a bit, holding her tighter. "You'll see her again sometime, okay? I mean, it might take a long time, but you'll see her again when you're ready. I swear it."

Peridot nodded, and I swore to her that I wouldn't let her go unless I could get her to smile again. And I'd spent the next ten minutes thinking of stupid puns and trying to remember old knock-knock jokes. And Peridot spent the same ten minutes trying like hell not to grin.

I wonder what happened to those two kids? What's changed? I'd admit it was me, if I wasn't so scared.

Seeing Peridot cry now breaks every spiteful bone in my body. My arm goes slack, and I stop tugging at the cuffs. There's a need I feel to wrap my arms around her again, but she's too far away.

"Peridot, please," I whisper, offering her my hand.

Peridot doesn't hide her face, instead letting the tears fall freely. She always hated looking weak or overly sensitive- but her red face and bleary eyes don't make her look weak at all. They make her look terrifying. Peridot quietly raises her hand, flashes her middle finger, and stares me right in the eyes.

"Go burn in hell, Lazuli," Peridot says before marching out the station doors to catch up with Pearl.

Someone flips a switch, and the world starts spinning.

I want to yell, but my lungs have stopped working. I fall back down on the bench and try to focus on the cracks between the tiles in the floor as my body seizes and my vision warps. My senses begin to numb, until all I can hear or see or feel are my thoughts, which have somehow become horrifyingly tangible.

It's the first drop of a rollercoaster when your restraints aren't firm.

It's swearing that you'll stay underwater for a minute this time when you're out of breath and only twenty seconds have passed.

It's learning to breathe when the air has been replaced with dry ice.

But like all things, it fades away with time.

And it takes a good twenty minutes to relax, but I eventually manage to expel the black fog lining my vision without anybody else to help me.

And then the spinning comes to a rest, and the world is calm.

I fall asleep on the bench.

* * *

I'm woken up after what I'm told is two hours, and the officers decide to disclose to me that they've checked everywhere with no sign of my parents. They claim they've called every phone line available, and want to know if I have any other relatives. I shake my head and tell them that mom and dad are probably out grocery shopping or something. They'll be here soon, I say. Give them another hour.

I wait for three before the officers start to feel pity for me.

They uncuff me and the one who offered me water grabs my forearm and leads me to a temporary cell.

"It's not great," he admits. "But I'd rather you here than chained up like a dog."

I thank him, eagerly pacing around my cell to get the blood flowing back to my legs. They feel like television static as I walk, but I walk anyways for the sensation of mobility alone. The officer looks at me with warm, sorry eyes and offers me a meal. I accept without resistance.

I never planned on spending a night in prison. But I did. And when I woke in the morning to nobody and nothing, I had the weirdest feeling of everything being perfectly normal.

We call it irony when somebody loses something they cut every corner to keep.

For the sake of my best interest, I'll call it grounds for character development. After all, there's no stronger foundation than rock bottom, and when you've hit your lowest, really, the only way's up.

Sometime during my stay, I decide that I don't want to stop fighting. Maybe struggling has been pointless, and maybe it's only ever served to prolong my inevitable downwards spiral of suffering that will in turn lead to a more inevitable death. But I'm still alive, aren't I? That's got to count for something.

I'll keep my legs moving for something that matters. And I don't care if I have to lose everything over and over again- I refuse to let them regret me, and I refuse to lose the game that I've been falling behind in ever since I first rolled the dice.

They're worth fighting for. And all I can do is hope that they still think I'm worth fighting for too.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who's still reading this, who's reviewed in the past, present, or future, or have given this story a favorite or follow. It means a lot.**


	17. It Takes Six Months

**HELLO! I can't believe I've finally written the last chapter to this unholy piece of work. I've never in my life put more effort into one thing, and I pride myself in finishing it more than anything else. When I conceived the idea for this fanfiction in the back of my dad's car on a trip to the amusement park, I had one goal. To reach 50,000 words. I am so glad to say that I exceeded that, and I never imagined that I would get so much attention for it!**

 **So here it is. One last chapter to culminate over 70,000 words and 6 months of work. I hope you enjoy it.**

 **Trigger Warnings: Depictions of an Anxiety Attack, Swearing**

* * *

It Takes Six Months

 **Three Days After**

Lapis Lazuli shudders, a simple duffel bag of clothes upon her back and anxiety whirring through her nerves like a white-hot electric current. She knocks on the screen door of her new home and stares at her feet.

After humiliating her parents one last time with the whole car-stealing stunt, they'd decided to draw the line and subsequently fled the state as soon as they got the first phone call. Lapis was forced to spill everything about her home life to the very people she'd been so intent on hiding it from, and it didn't take more than a few hours for the child protective services to rule Lapis' parents unfit and neglectful.

Since none of her other family members wanted anything to do with her, Lapis was shoved into the foster system. Rather, she would've been, but a family from Beach City volunteered to take her at the last second.

They'd asked one thing of her- if she wanted to live under their roof, she had to finish high school. Lapis didn't want to accept, but she also didn't want to be taken from Beach City, and so she reluctantly packed enough clothes to fit a backpack and was escorted to the beach house.

"You'll be fine with these folks, you know," the officer Lapis had grown friendly with says. He ruffles her hair in reassurance. "They're real nice."

"Yeah," Lapis laughs nervously. "I know."

She knocks again, and this time a young boy answers the door. He smiles with the warmth no child should possess looking into the eyes of a near stranger.

"Are you Lapis?" he asks, cracking the door open and peering through.

"That she is," the officer grins. "Mind helping her with her bags while I talk to your mom?"

The boy nods, his grin growing like moss. "Okay!" he holds his hands out and it takes Lapis a moment to realize that he wants her bag. She gingerly hands him the duffel bag and rolls her shoulders. "I'm Steven, by the way. Garnet! Lapis is here!"

Pearl's older sister emerges from the living room, frowning. They're not happy to be taking Lapis in- especially after what she did- but they agreed to adopt her because they wouldn't be able to live with themselves if they threw her to the child-eating wolf that is the foster system.

Garnet pushes past Lapis, hardly even offering her a nod. Steven notices the animosity, but tries to ignore it, grabbing Lapis' hand and half-leading half-dragging her to the guest room. "This used to be Amethyst's room, but she's got moved to Pearl's 'cause it's really big. Anyways I thought it looked kinda unwelcoming, so I put up some posters n' stuff! Do you like them?"

Lapis looks around her new room, takes note of the magazine-sized cartoon posters, and smiles. "They're… nice," she says, setting her bag down.

She sits down on her new (but not unused) bed and decides that Steven's probably going to be the only one in this house who doesn't hate her. She can't imagine he knows. Her eyes trace the posters again, and then they flicker back to Steven.

"Yeah. They are pretty nice, aren't they?"

* * *

 **Three days and Two Hours After**

"Rule one. You live in this house, you go to school."

Lapis shrinks into her chair, holding onto the seat with a death grip as Garnet recites the house rules. The woman is terrifying, standing at nearly six feet tall and with broad shoulders rivaled only by pro-wrestlers and business women with shoulder-pads built into their pantsuits.

As soon as they'd finished going through the necessary legal papers, Garnet had called a family meeting. Meeting would be a nice word. To Lapis, it feels like an interrogation.

"Rule two. You do chores. We have a chore chart on the fridge," Garnet points to the respective chart.

"Rule three. You do not cause problems." This rule is enforced by a stern look from both of Pearl's sisters. Pearl stares out the window behind her, avoiding Lapis' gaze.

"Rule four. No drinking, smoking, cursing, or fighting. And no slamming doors." Pearl feels for the tin of mints in her pocket. Lapis doesn't think much of it.

"Rule five. Breaking any of the above rules will result in severe consequences."

Lapis' eyes widen. "You're not going to send me back, are you?" She feels her chest constrict, and her fingers tighten further against the wooden chair.

Garnet's expression softens just a degree. "Not likely. Now get to bed. School tomorrow."

Lapis nods reluctantly and scoots off of the chair, shuffling down the hall. Halfway there, she's intercepted by Pearl's younger sister. Amethyst had been quiet during the family meeting, but Lapis knew well enough that she was a brash kid with a mouth that broke Garnet's 'no swearing' rule with every sentence.

Amethyst crosses her arms and glares daggers into Lapis' skull. "Yo, you better watch it," she snarls. "Everybody else here might be ignoring what you did to Pearl, but that's just 'cause we feel bad for you."

Lapis isn't sure how to respond. Her hands twitch, and she stands there wordlessly, spine ramrod. "Uh…"

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

* * *

 **One Month and One Week After**

Lapis curls her fingers over the fret board of her new acoustic. She'd worked hard for it, picking up work upon Garnet's request at the local music store. It's a great job. Hardly anyone comes in, and most of the time her duties involve repairs, cleaning, or 'testing' out the many instruments around the store. By time she got her first paycheck, she already knew what she wanted.

She plucks out a few strings, getting back into the feel of music. Her old guitar was confiscated from the Volkswagen's trunk and kept in police custody for further examination- which was a fancy way to say it was never ever coming back.

Lapis has never been a fan of acoustics, but this one caught her eye. It was second-hand and missing a couple of strings, but Lapis had repaired it during her shift and managed to buy it cheap.

It isn't long before she sees a face poke into her room. "Steven," she says, hardly switching focus from the song she's making up as she goes.

"I like your song," he whispers. "Can I watch?"

Lapis blushes. In truth, she's never played for anyone outside of Pearl, Peridot, her parents, and the walls of her bedroom. She swallows hard and nods stiffly. "Uh- do you have any requests?" She holds a C-chord, but doesn't strum.

"Play what you were doin' before, that was really good!"

"Oh- you think? I was kind of just making stuff up as I went. It's not like, an actual song or anything."

"Well make it a song!" Steven insists, hurrying into the room and diving onto Lapis' bed so that he can sit next to her.

Can't argue with that logic, Lapis thinks. She strums out a simple progression, and closes her eyes. And she sings. It's painfully quiet at first- so much so that Steven has to strain his ears just to hear her over the vibrating steel- but raises in volume as she gains confidence. She doesn't worry much over the coherency of her lyrics. Much like some have a way with computers, Lapis has a way with words.

One needs a way with words to be friends with Peridot for as long as she has. Snarky comments always need a witty comeback, and if nothing else, Lapis has always been able to meet that standard.

She plays for a long time, adding bridges and choruses and solo riffs (she thinks Steven likes the solos the best, but that's just a guess).

"You're really good!" Steven grins when she's done. "Are you going to be a musician when you grow up? I kind of want to be one myself."

"I don't know," Lapis hums, although she does know. She's always known. She's given up her parents as a price for knowing. "You play?"

"Yeah! Ukulele, mostly, but I like guitar too!" He suddenly gasps. "We should play together sometime!"

Lapis wonders where he gets his enthusiasm. Even at his age, she can't remember being so excited to be alive. Still, she's glad. She hopes he never grows up, or at best, never grows up like her.

Steven pauses to notice the way Lapis frowns. He sighs, and his smile melts away like hot butter.

"Lapis? I know my family's kind of iffy about you, but they'll come around. Promise," Steven holds out his pinky finger. Lapis raises a brow, but agrees to seal the pact and twines her pinky with his. "Pearl will, too. She still cares about you, you know."

Lapis' eyes widen. She had always assumed that Steven had been oblivious to the whole affair deal. She stares at his warm eyes and suddenly, they look a little older. She had always thought that Steven acted a bit young for his age, but only now does she realize that being young is something he chooses.

She wonders if it's too late to choose that herself.

"Thank you, Steven. I needed that," she says quietly. It's silent for a long while, and for the first time in her life, Lapis learns to enjoy the lack of noise. Not for too long, though.

She passes Steven the guitar. "How about you show me what you can do?"

Steven beams. "Okay!"

* * *

 **One Month, Three Weeks, and Two Days After**

Lapis usually likes Christmas. She likes all the stupid holiday songs, and movies, and she likes making fun of Peridot because Peridot hates it.

"It's commercialism and capitalism, and everybody's just too stupid to realize it," Peridot would say.

Lapis doesn't really care too much about the intricate works of the economy. She just likes having a yearly excuse to get people things.

This time, though, she's scared. She stands at the corner, watching intently as Peridot draws a little white box from her locker and inspects it. Lapis' heart races and she bites her lip. It's the last day before winter break, and she's been fighting with herself all week on whether or not to give Peridot a gift.

The part of her that doesn't want to break gift-giving tradition wins out, and she manages to find something that Peridot can't call commercialist.

It's the flash drive containing the video of her swim meet, and a message written in sharpie that simply reads- 5:06.

Lapis hopes Peridot will understand and skip to that time, because the minutes before that are filled with video evidence of Lapis getting her ass kicked in the one thing she's good at, and 5:06 is when Peridot starts cheering. Lapis remembers watching the video with her parents, and she also remembers Peridot's voice being so overpowering that it had drowned out the frantic splashes of water as Lapis had caught up to her opponent and ultimately won.

* * *

 **Two Months and One Week After**

"I need your computer," Lapis confronts Pearl just as she's about to leave the house.

"What? What for?"

"Private stuff!"

"You're disgusting."

"Oh my god, no. Not that kind of private stuff," Lapis chokes. She re-composes herself quickly. "Look, you can monitor me if you want, but I really need to see this."

Pearl reluctantly agrees, hanging her jacket back up, and following Lapis down the hall. They're in Pearl's room, and they're both a little uncomfortable, because the last time they were both in this room, they were stripping in front of her inspirational poster of Albert Einstein.

Pearl slips her laptop out from under her bed and opens it. "What is it you needed to see?"

"Here, put this in," Lapis urges, passing her a flash drive. It has a message uncannily written by Peridot. It reads, "pictures".

Pearl does as the message instructs and opens up the flash drive's files. She finds the pictures folder and pulls it up. There's one file. Lapis points to it with excited hands, and Pearl wordlessly maximizes it.

It's Peridot's middle finger- surrounded by Christmas lights and with "Fuck Off" written under it in red and green letters.

Pearl doesn't know what level of humor one might need to enjoy this, but obviously it's not much, because Lapis is laughing hard as soon as she sees it.

"I don't get it," Pearl frowns.

"It's so fucking extra," Lapis laughs, forgetting Garnet's rules against swearing. "This is ridiculous. I love it. It's like, she's going through so much unneeded effort just to spite me, you know?"

"I suppose so," Pearl says. She doesn't realize that this is how Lapis understands that Peridot still cares.

* * *

 **Three Months After**

Lapis doesn't want to talk.

She stumbled upon something she didn't want to see, and now she feels like the world is crashing down upon her shoulders. It's discovered in the back pocket of her favorite jeans, and it feels as if it's been laying dormant there for months, just waiting for Lapis to find it at the worst possible time.

It's a note from Peridot, from when they still did such friendly things. It's not especially meaningful- it just recounts some of the day's events- but Lapis hardly breathes as she reads it.

 _Lapis,_

 _Science today was a total wreck. You know how Long-Nose-Mc-Dipshit and I are working on a project together? Well, today she walked in with this huge-ass stack of papers and told me the project was done, and that I shouldn't even worry about it. Because, you know, that's totally not insulting or anything. I totally didn't already waste a night on this stupid project. The fucking arrogance, I swear. I mean, if we have to split up the suffering like joint-prisoners, I might as well do my fair fucking share._

 _I can't hang out tonight, sorry. I'm going to do the project anyways, and she was stupid enough to let me review her papers, so now I'm going to make my project way better than hers could ever be! I swear- it's going to be the best fucking thing seen by man- 'Gel Electrophoresis and How it Connects to the Maury Show', by Peridot._

 _Anyways, really sorry. I'm sure you understand._

 _Love you, asshole._

 _-Peridot_

Pearl finds Lapis curled up on her bed at four in the afternoon, and though she's concerned, she doesn't say anything. She tiptoes in and taps Lapis' shoulder. No response. Upon closer inspection, she finds that Lapis is sleeping, and a slightly damp piece of paper is clutched to her chest. Pearl sighs and turns off Lapis' bedroom lights before retreating back into the hall.

* * *

 **Four Months And Two Weeks After**

"I'll be leaving this summer for a junior boot camp," Pearl says, staring at her untouched plate.

Garnet and Amethyst congratulate her, but Lapis says nothing. Her attention was lost as soon as Pearl announced that she'd enlisted. Lapis didn't need to be a straight-A student in US Government to realize this meant Pearl would be leaving.

Lapis doesn't know why this bothers her so much, but it does. She puts her fork down and glares at Pearl across the table.

"So you're just leaving? Just like that?"

"Lapis, it's not like-,"

"No, I know what it's 'like', Pearl," Lapis sneers. She stands up, ignoring Garnet's instruction to calm down. "You're just gonna fucking leave us alone? When where you even going to tell us?"

Garnet's eyes flicker to Lapis warningly. "Lapis…"

"I'm telling you now!" Pearl yells, throwing her arms up.

"And when did you enlist?"

"Well, I- it was a few months ago, but that's not the point!" Pearl exclaims. "I didn't want to tell anyone for this reason exactly!" She lets out a sound of distress and stands up as well.

"You're so fucking stupid!" Lapis snaps, running her nails through her hair.

"Enough!" Garnet roars. Lapis freezes, and after a moment of deafening silence, kicks her chair back into the table, announces that she's not hungry anymore, and storms off to her room. She slams her door shut, and Garnet clicks her tongue.

"Yikes," she remarks simply before going back to her food in silence.

"I'll go talk to her," Pearl sighs, gently sliding her chair back and walking to Lapis' room. She knocks on the closed door, and finds herself thankful for once that none of the inside doors in the house have locks. "I'm coming in," she announces, cracking the door open and slipping inside before shutting it again. Lapis is sitting on her bed, arms hugging her legs to her chest.

"Lapis," Pearl sits down next to her. Lapis looks right through her. "Hey," Pearl nudges the girl's shoulder.

"I don't want you to go," Lapis chokes out. "It's not fair."

"I don't want to go either," Pearl offers a breathy laugh. "But one accepts the cards they're dealt."

"Don't give me that sentimental B-S," Lapis furrows her brows.

"Is this about your parents?" Pearl asks, her hand finding Lapis' shoulders. She rubs gentle circles into Lapis' warm-blooded skin.

Lapis shakes her head. "No," she says, although she considers the thought. "I just don't want you to leave on bad terms, I guess."

Pearl nods and hugs Lapis close. "Lapis, I forgive you," she whispers.

She knows it's what Lapis has needed to hear for months, but only now has she gained the courage to utter it. It takes a lot to admit that she's not mad anymore. To admit that the person who hurt her and the person she's holding right now share only an appearance.

"I know," Lapis smiles sadly.

They don't say more, but Lapis is thankful for the silence.

* * *

 **Six Months After**

She failed her swimming exam.

The coach had agreed to move Peridot to another class under the circumstances that Lapis' grade would still rest upon her. It doesn't make sense to Lapis, but the coach mentioned something about "hard work" and "giving up comes with a price" and a lot of other things that Lapis finds more fit to be in a _Chicken Soup for the Soul_ book.

Lapis watches Peridot try, though she finds it hard to. It's like watching the protagonist of a horror movie go into the same room where the killer lies in wait and not being able to stop them.

Peridot looks like she's trying, but during the adjusted 30-second tread, she sinks like a stone and has to be rescued by the coach. Lapis swears she only laughs a little when Peridot is dragged to the surface screaming that she doesn't need Mouth-to-Mouth resuscitation. Thankfully, her pleas are heard by the coach before he can traumatize her.

Lapis wishes her GPA had raised enough to take the failure, but it hadn't. Even with Pearl and Garnet helping her on her homework assignments and studying, her grades are still quivering on low C's or worse.

Lapis sighs and trudges to the locker rooms. She catches Peridot's guilty face as she dresses and smiles just barely as they connect gazes as silent assurance that she won't kick Peridot's ass. This, as one might suspect, is a great relief to Peridot.

"Hey," Lapis mumbles as the bell rings. It's the first word she's said to Peridot since she was told to burn in hell. "It's okay. Swim team's overrated anyways."

Peridot nods and pushes past Lapis to hurry to her next class.

* * *

 **Six Months and Three Days After**

They don't know what triggers it. A broken plate, maybe.

But when Pearl finds Lapis hyperventilating on the kitchen floor next to a shattered plate, she immediately knows that Lapis is having an anxiety attack. Lapis doesn't even notice her when she walks in, too trapped in the spinning of her own world to recognize a familiar face.

"Lapis," Pearl says quietly. Lapis doesn't move. She begins to wheeze, until the sound of her breathing becomes painful.

Pearl tries to touch Lapis, extending her fingertips and ghosting over Lapis' cheek. Lapis screams like Pearl had beaten her instead and scrambles away.

"Lapis, it's okay! Please, look at me!" Pearl yells. Lapis chokes on her own air and squeezes her fists until her nails leave crescent moon indents into her palms. Pearl curses under her breath and fumbles for her phone, assuring Lapis that she's going to get help.

Pearl dials the number with shaking hands, putting the call on speaker.

"Hello?" Peridot's voice rings through the room, and Lapis calms down a fraction of a degree.

"It's Pearl," Pearl says. "How do you calm her down during an anxiety attack?"

"Oh fuck, is she having one now?"

"Yes!"

"Shit, okay. Get close to her. It's a sensory thing- you need to touch her."

Pearl groans in frustration. "I tried that! It simply made things worse!"

"Well calm the fuck down, then! You're probably freaking her out. Look, get close to her, okay? Tap her somewhere like her legs or shoulders to make sure she's okay with you touching her. If she doesn't back up, you're good," Peridot instructs, and Pearl's glad the phone's on speaker, because Lapis seems to respond to the voice coming from it.

Pearl does as Peridot says and inches towards Lapis, tapping her knees twice. When Lapis only stares back blankly and hiccups, Pearl gets closer. Ignoring the awkwardness of intimacy, she straddles Lapis' thighs, keeping her arms awkwardly stationed at her chest.

"Okay," Pearl says into the phone.

"Alright, now block her vision. It's a sensory thing, I think. Put her head into your shoulder, and do something soothing, like combing through her hair or rubbing her back. Whatever works."

Pearl does as she's told, cautiously cradling Lapis' head into her body and rubbing tight circles into her back with the flat of her palm. From this close, she can feel Lapis' chest stutter as it tries to accommodate her lungs. The girl's wheezing is muffled by her shirt.

"Am I on speaker?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Lapis. Lapis, it's me. Breathe, okay? In and out. You know how to do this."

It takes nearly thirty minutes for Peridot to fully coax Lapis away from the edge of hysteria. Pearl becomes oddly familiar to the drone of Peridot's voice as she murmurs firm encouragements or reminders to keep rubbing Lapis' back. It's the gentlest she's ever heard Peridot talk, and she almost feels as if she's intruding on something private.

"I'm sorry," Lapis coughs out as soon as she can breathe again. "I don't know what happened. I was just cleaning dishes or whatever when," she pauses. "I just lost it, I guess. I'm sorry."

"Is she okay?" Peridot asks.

"She's better now, yes."

"Alright. Uh. I'm gonna go, then, I guess. If that's okay, uh," Peridot stammers, her collected tone of voice replaced by something awkward and nervous.

"That's fine," Pearl assures her. She cuts the line and scoots off of Lapis to offer some space. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just wish you didn't see that," Lapis takes in a heavy breath, hugging herself in Pearl's absence.

"Why?"

Lapis shrugs. "Don't know. I just feel stupid and helpless, I guess." She runs shaky fingers through her hair.

Pearl doesn't comment. She knows already that Lapis won't believe a good word she says.

Pearl helps Lapis up, and she cleans up the shattered plate. Lapis decidedly goes back to scrubbing dishes, too stubborn to sit down and rest. Pearl stares at the cracked platter and tries to wonder what about it caused Lapis' to panic.

Nothing stands out at her.

"I'm glad Peridot was there to help," Pearl says, throwing the plate in the trash.

"I guess so," Lapis shrugs, her hand twitching.

* * *

 **Six Months and Three Weeks After**

Lapis strums her guitar as Steven sings. They call it a band.

They don't have a name yet, but they've come up with more than a dozen songs- most of which are written by Steven. Some of them are by Lapis. One of them is about Peridot.

Lapis goes to break for a solo, but something stops her. A familiar face is pressed to the crack in her door, staring. Listening. Lapis stops playing to stare back, and the eye widens before disappearing from the doorway. There's the sound of feet trampling against the wooden floor as she retreats.

"Was that Amethyst?" Lapis asks, raising a brow. She hadn't spoken to the youngest of Pearl's sisters save for the first night, and she'd assumed that Amethyst more or less hated her.

"See?" Steven pipes up. "I told you they'd come around."

And as soon as Lapis begins to play again, she feels the eyes burning into her back, and the ears hungrily eating every chord.

"You can come in," she announces without turning.

It takes a moment, but surely enough, the door squeaks open and Amethyst shuffles in. She sits down on the floor, and Steven insists they sing one of the songs he wrote. Lapis agrees without protest, and she notices Amethyst's eyes trained on her hand as she switches between chords.

Lapis smiles, and by the time they're done, understands.

"Do you want to learn?" She asks.

"If that's chill with you," Amethyst shrugs, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes and looking away almost sullenly. "I mean, you're okay, I guess."

Lapis grins. "You think?"

"Yeah, dude," Amethyst nods seriously, her lips twitching. "You're pretty fuckin' awesome, actually." Steven gasps at the curse, and Amethyst puts him in a playful chokehold, claiming that she'll have him sleeping with the fish if he tells Garnet. He agrees between alternating gasps and laughs.

Lapis smiles. She's home.

* * *

 **It's June 15** **th** **.**

Lapis has been dreading this day since Pearl had announced her enlistment. Pearl leaves on the bus in six hours, and she's too busy finishing her preparations to talk much.

They'd spent the night before doing 'family time'- watching old movies Lapis has already seen, and recounting old memories that Lapis has never experienced. Still, Amethyst seems excited to tell the stories to a new face, and thanks to her colorful vocabulary and usage of hand gestures, Lapis finds herself enjoying it.

It doesn't matter how much time has passed- Lapis still can't stand the fact that Pearl will be leaving. It's extra bittersweet now too, because she just started becoming friends with her again.

To Lapis, it's a time of crisis.

And in times of crisis, Lapis reverts to habit. Naturally, this means that she goes for a run. She tells Pearl that she'll meet up with everyone at the bus stop to see her off, and jogs to the boardwalk. She doesn't plan to find Peridot at the Big Donut, but somehow, she knew she'd be there.

Lapis steps into the store and orders something both big enough to dispel suspicion and small enough to eat without feeling guilty.

She notices the stiff expressions shared between Lars and Sadie as she orders. There's no doubt that Peridot's told them everything. The easy conversation between Peridot and the two employees breaks into a small whisper, and Lapis knows that she's the topic of interest.

She sits down at one of the tables, and despite the awkwardness of being talked about three feet away, she enjoys herself. It's nice being around Peridot, even if they aren't on talking terms. It's the newfound comfort Lapis feels with silence that gives her enough bravery to break it.

"Hey," she says, still sitting down.

"Hey," Peridot says back. She doesn't turn to look back at Lapis.

"Pearl's leaving today."

"Is she?"

"Yeah."

There's no more talk for a while. Lapis finishes her donut and throws her trash away. And then she walks up to the counter and confronts Peridot face-to-face. Peridot's face has changed since she last saw her. It's more angular and full. It's more grown. But her eyes are still the same, and so Lapis focuses on those.

"Do you want to see her off with me?" Lapis asks, biting her lip.

Peridot says yes. It's their first date.

They meet at the bus station ten minutes early, and Pearl greets Peridot warmly. Peridot offers her an awkward hello, wishes her the best, and grants half-assed greetings to Pearl's family. Lapis idly wonders if this was a good idea.

When the bus finally comes to pick up the recruits, Pearl is breathing heavily. Her eyes dart restlessly from the bus to her family, and she shakes with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. She says goodbye to Garnet and Amethyst, and then to Lapis.

"Be good to her," Pearl whispers as she wraps Lapis into a hug. Lapis splutters a bit and with a bright red face, assures Pearl that she will. They promise to video chat and send letters. It's an honest pact.

When the bus leaves, Lapis cries. It's not sad, or even very noticeable. Just a few wet tears that bubble over her eyes and that get instantly swept away by her sleeve. Peridot puts her hands in her pockets and offers to walk Lapis home.

"Thanks for coming with me," Lapis says as they walk shoulder to shoulder down the street.

"Don't mention it," Peridot says. "Shit, what are friends for?"

* * *

 **Five Years After**

Lapis never stops fighting.

It doesn't always get easier, but she still fights no matter what. I've learned to admire that.

Leaving the Beach City Police Department, I was so sure that I'd never talk to Lapis Lazuli again. I was even more certain that we would never be friends, much less girlfriends who sleep in the same bed together on a nightly basis.

It amazes me to what extents the universe will go to prove me wrong.

This story is not about a war. War mutilates. It destroys. It leaves a body count and a handful of fucked up people who lose the ability to watch the very fireworks that honor them because they're reminded too much of the cannons blasting on the battlefront.

This story is not about war, despite what my inexperienced voice will tell you at the beginning. This story is about growing up.

And I didn't grow up when I almost lost my virginity, or when my car was stolen. I didn't even grow up when I learned not to hate people I could instead feel empathy towards.

I grew up the day I flipped off Lapis Lazuli in the police department and told the girl I loved to burn in hell. Because that was the day I forced myself to learn how to be whole without her. And I think that was the day Lapis realized that she could be whole without me, too.

We don't hide anymore.

We hold hands when we walk, kiss when we greet each other, and put our arms around each other's shoulders during car rides. Every now and again we say our "I love you"s out loud for everyone else to hear.

It's not affectionate, it's honest.

It's not a steady staircase-climb up the mountain. Sometimes it's more like an elevator that only goes up, and other times, it's an avalanche that knocks us back down to the bottom.

But Lapis never stops fighting, and neither do I. Because we have separately made the joint decision to believe that we are worth it.

And at night, when we lie in bed in our apartment, her arms around my waist and her short, bright blue hair splayed out across my chest, I sleep easy knowing that she will still be there the next morning, and every morning after.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who inspired me to keep fighting for this story. Thank you everyone who read, reviewed, followed, or favorited this story.**

 **Thank you for letting me write to you.**

 **SPECIAL THANKS:**

 **Mayordeweyhype on Tumblr, who wrote a really amazing song for this fanfiction. They've been supporting this fic from the beginning, and I am so thankful for that. Check out their song on my bio and give them some love.**


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